Energy: Electricity Generation

Lord Ezra: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What is their long-term policy for electricity generation.

Lord Bach: My Lords, the Energy Bill will strengthen the framework for investment in power stations to help the United Kingdom to ensure secure supplies of energy and tackle climate change. Measures in the Bill will help to achieve a tripling of the amount of electricity from renewables by 2015 and pave the way for the demonstration of carbon capture and storage. The Government's White Paper invited energy companies to bring forward plans for new nuclear power stations.

Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that encouraging response but I wonder whether he can be a bit more precise about what the position might be in 2020, which will be a key year in the consideration of forward electricity policy. Does he recall that the Government estimated that, on present trends, the electricity mix could contain 55 per cent of gas, compared with 37 per cent at present? That would be entirely unacceptable in terms of security and emissions and contrary to present European policy. Can he therefore indicate, without precise commitment at this stage, what the Government would like the mix to be in 2020? Specifically, what could be the share of coal with carbon capture and storage, to which he referred, of nuclear in the light of the recent White Paper, of renewables, bearing in mind the EU proposals, and of gas? Furthermore, can the noble Lord indicate what would then be the proportion of distributed electricity?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord for his great expertise in this field. He will know that generating capacity at the end of last year was: coal, 38 per cent; nuclear, 16 per cent; oil, 6 per cent; wind, 1 per cent; hydro, 5 per cent; and gas, the remainder; plus a two-gigawatt interconnector from France. Of course, I cannot be specific about what the figures will be in 2020, but the noble Lord will know that nine power stations will have to close by the end of 2015, which amounts to a total of 12 gigawatts—about a fifth of our peak electricity demand and around 15 per cent of our total generating capacity—and some of our nuclear power plants must close by 2018. How will this capacity be replaced? There are five gas-fired power stations where construction work has already started, three more have received approval from the Secretary of State, seven more have applied for approval, and—perhaps most significantly—there are 276 renewables projects with approval and a further 259 under consideration. So far as concerns new nuclear power stations, none is likely to have been built by 2020.

Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, in the face of this lack of planning by the Government and in the absence of the Minister, again, what does the noble Lord plan to do if the Scottish Parliament blocks the plan to build a new nuclear power station in Scotland?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness does not think that I am a Minister. I think that some Members of the House do think that I am, but I understand. If I am not good enough for her, I again apologise. She asks an important question, although of course its premise is pure nonsense. The fact is that it is this Government who have looked to our energy future. At long last, the party opposite has come around to supporting what I would argue is absolute common sense: that there should be a nuclear element in that civil policy. I very much hope that the Liberal Democrats will do the same in due course.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, consequential on the very firm commitments now being made on carbon reduction and supported by all parties—Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat—does my noble friend agree that if we are to achieve these, electricity generating costs, as well as consumer energy taxes more generally, will increase, partly to reflect extra input costs and partly to choke off demand?

Lord Bach: My Lords, I do not entirely agree with the point that my noble friend makes. Electricity generating costs are determined by a number of variables, including fossil fuel prices, operating costs and the costs of purchasing carbon allowances. Our policy is to encourage low carbon generation within our market-based framework—renewables, nuclear and carbon capture storage. However, I agree with him to this extent: other things being equal, higher carbon prices will increase the cost of generating electricity from carbon-emitting plants. Those plants will continue to play a role in the UK generation mix for at least the medium term.

The Lord Bishop of Chester: My Lords, when does the Minister expect the first commercially viable and economic carbon capture plant to be operational in this country?

Lord Bach: My Lords, that is a difficult question to answer. As the right reverend Prelate knows, a very important demonstration project is going on at the present time. We have high hopes of CCS; we think that it is a very important process. However, I am afraid that it is impossible to give him a date when the first project will be on stream. A great deal of work is being done at present, and this particular demonstration is of great importance for the future.

Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, the Minister has already indicated that the price of carbon is crucial to the future investment in electricity-generating capacity. The White Paper referred to the Government being prepared to take extra measures to support the Emissions Trading Scheme, if that proved necessary to encourage investment. Could he tell us what the Government have in mind by way of additional measures to help the trading scheme?

Lord Bach: My Lords, the scheme is of considerable importance to us.
	The noble Lord, with his expertise as an ex-Secretary of State, will, I am sure, have had to find the bit in his briefing that deals with the question. He may remember those days; he may not. Let me tell him that it is not particularly comfortable. I will reply to him in writing as to our exact plans, but he can be sure that they are very effective.

Political Parties: Expenditure

Lord Hylton: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they are considering limits on expenditure by political parties during general elections and on publicity and advertising between general elections.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, limits on the amount that parties can spend on regulated campaigning activities in the 365 days prior to a general election were introduced by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The question whether expenditure between elections should be further limited was considered by the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, by Sir Hayden Phillips's review and during interparty talks. The Government committed in the Queen's Speech to bringing forward proposals on party finance and expenditure.

Lord Hylton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply, but is there not still a paradox in our having strict limits on spending by parliamentary candidates at elections but only a rather modest limit on what can be spent, for example, on TV advertising and billboards across the country by political parties? Does that not leave the political parties overspent and wide open to corrupt influences?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the noble Lord's point on expenditure—what counts and what does not—is very important. That is, of course, why the Hayden Phillips review was established and why interparty talks took place. It is the great regret of the Government that the Conservative Party withdrew from those talks.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, does my noble friend have any evidence that spiralling expenditure on publicity, market research, telephone banks and other expensive practices has had any beneficial impact on turnout or on the quality of our democracy? If he does not, will he ensure that limits on expenditure—both during election campaigns and between them—are kept tightly screwed down?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is difficult to see any really hard evidence of the direct impact of expenditure on results and votes cast. Clearly, we appear to have an arms race in overall election spending. It is surely a good thing if we can bring that under control, and if we can do it by consensus. It is a great pity that the Conservative Party withdrew from the interparty talks.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, given that during an election campaign and the subsequent average length of a Parliament all the political parties put together will spend something like £50 million, is it really sensible for the taxpayer to spend £100 million on the costs of the Electoral Commission, which is meant to police them?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, we return to the question that the noble Lord raised yesterday. I believe that the Electoral Commission has done a good job. He will know that various recommendations have been made in relation to its future responsibilities, which the Government are carefully considering. We will bring forward ideas in due course.

Viscount Tenby: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the saying of the late Henry Ford that everybody knows that half of every advertising campaign is wasted; the trouble is that they do not know which half? If the taxpayer had to fund election expenses, as has been suggested in some quarters, would not the waste involved reduce immeasurably? I declare an interest as someone who dabbled in the black arts of PR and advertising for more years than I care to remember.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I turn again to the outcome of the Hayden Phillips review, which looked into that question. He suggested donation caps, a limit on overall expenditure and some increased state funding, which seemed a particularly sensible way to go forward.

Lord Rennard: My Lords, does the Minister accept that the legislation introduced in 2000 has clearly failed in its primary purpose of cleaning up the reputation of politics? The solutions that he has just spoken about are clearly required—reducing considerably the amounts that parties can spend, banning large donations made to political parties, and replacing the latter with a limited increase in state funding. It is therefore incumbent on all political parties to get together again around the table to try and sort out this issue.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the one thing on which I do not agree with the noble Lord is his comment on the 2000 Act, because that brought great advantages. Clearly, we need to build on that, and it is much better that we do that through consensus. The Government have sought that consensus; the party opposite has, unfortunately, walked away from it.

Lord Strathclyde: It was the trade unions.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the Conservative Party now says that it walked away because of the trade unions, but I remind the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the talks related to them were going very well. Indeed, I turn to a comment made by Mr David Heath, Liberal Democrat MP, in the Pink News of 3 January about the Conservative Party:
	"Frankly, it's entirely bogus what they're saying about trade union funding. Some of the abuses that undoubtedly are there were dealt with and the Labour party had to move a long way on it. It was interesting that their attitude changed on this subject markedly over the summer at about the same time that a certain Lord Ashcroft moved into Central Office".

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, why is it that the Government will not talk realistically about the future of trade union funding of the Labour Party, particularly the future of the political levy?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the talks within the interparty review were leading to an extremely constructive outcome on all the proposals put forward in the Hayden Phillips review. My regret is that last March the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said:
	"We on this side welcome the report. We accept its main recommendations. We want cleaner and cheaper politics and we agree with Sir Hayden that the outstanding issues should be addressed swiftly".—[Official Report, 15/3/07; col. 907.]
	It is a great pity that he and his colleagues have walked away from the discussions.

NHS: Malnutrition

Baroness Knight of Collingtree: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How they will respond to the recent reports about the levels of malnourishment of patients in NHS hospitals.

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, nutrition is important for all patients. In October 2007, we published Improving Nutritional Care: A Joint Action Plan to outline how nutritional care and hydration can be improved in NHS hospitals. We have introduced protected mealtimes and focused on nutritional screening.

Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, perhaps I may be the first to offer warm congratulations to the noble Baroness on the assumption of her new job. I hope that she enjoys great success and derives much satisfaction from it. However, is she as concerned as I am at the recent report that 140,000 patients recently discharged from NHS hospitals were found to be suffering from malnutrition? Although some of them may have been so suffering when they went in, her own department has shown that 8,500 were in a state of starvation when they came out. The Health Minister in the other place has admitted that starvation in our hospitals is really quite common. Will the noble Baroness please see that some urgency is injected into this very important matter, on which I have been pressing this House for many years?

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, the noble Baroness has an admirable track record of campaigning on these issues and I thank her for drawing them to the attention of the House again. We know that some patients are admitted at risk of malnutrition. Often this is part of their clinical condition, especially where illness causes a loss of appetite and where there is malabsorption. It is important that staff recognise patients at risk and take the necessary steps to help improve their nutritional state. The noble Baroness is quite correct about that. Indeed, recognising and recording patients with a diagnosis of malnutrition is an essential first step to solving the problem. This is and has to be a priority, and it is a priority in the Nutritional Action Plan. The work of the National Patient Safety Agency is undertaken to build nutrition screening into all treatment plans as a proactive means of avoiding the risk of malnutrition.

Lord Winston: My Lords, is not one practical problem the level of staffing on old people's wards? What happens in practice is that at mealtimes food is dumped in front of patients who may be neither physically nor mentally capable of feeding themselves. Relatives to help these patients are often unwelcome on the ward. One of the real issues is to find ways of getting staff who can help patients to eat. Is there anything that the Government can do to try and stimulate health authorities and hospitals to do something about that?

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, my noble friend is right to say that the Government's job is to stimulate action at the local and hospital level. We have always placed caring at the centre of nursing, and indeed I have done a great deal to support the caring role of nurses. There is no excuse for anyone to be too busy to assist at mealtimes. The introduction of protected mealtimes is a key tool in ensuring that the right level of attention is given to ensuring that patients who can eat will enjoy their meals, while those who need assistance receive it.

Baroness Tonge: My Lords, on behalf of my party, I, too, welcome the Minister to her post. Does she agree that, together with infections and the indignity of mixed wards, malnutrition now has to be added to the risks facing us when we go into an NHS hospital? Will she admit that this is a result of the Government's targets culture in the NHS, which forces managers to think only about the number of patients they are treating and not the quality of care they receive?

Baroness Thornton: No, my Lords, I do not accept that. Good nutrition places demands on a huge multidisciplinary team within a hospital. Although the noble Baroness is right that the key for improvement lies locally, the Government have put in place a range of national initiatives—such as the national action plan led by Gordon Lishman of Age Concern, and the Patient Environment Action Plan, which will be assessed twice in the coming year—that will give a national framework to be delivered locally by clinicians and nurses.

Baroness Greengross: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Baroness. Will this plan give people, particularly frail people, the reassurance they need that the unpleasant experience that so many have in hospital when they are given meals will not continue? Will it ensure that non-pureed food is not given to patients who cannot swallow, that vegetarians will not continue to be given meat dishes, that food trays will not be placed at the end of the bed and so on? Will the plan really cover those very important points?

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, the answer is yes. It is unacceptable that some of our most vulnerable older patients and other patients with special requirements do not receive the help they need to eat or the food that they enjoy. It is very important and we are keen to respond to constructive criticism. The Nutritional Action Plan will help to deliver exactly what the noble Baroness seeks.

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the Minister on her appointment and I look forward to the good work that I am sure she will do in her role. One of the solutions, in addition to seeking to use families to assist with feeding, is to take up the opportunity of using more volunteers. I speak as a trustee of the Community Service Volunteers, and declare an interest. We have considerable difficulties in persuading trusts that greater use should be made of volunteers, even though there are many volunteers around and willing to do this work. Can my noble friend, as a new commitment in her new post, give an undertaking that she will look into this and endeavour to get greater freedom for volunteers to be used in this respect in the future?

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, the answer is yes.

The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, the Minister is aware that good nursing care depends not only on financial resource but also on the underlying attitudes of people in the profession to their patients. Can she tell the House what steps are being taken to assess current attitudes to the care of elderly people? What steps does she propose should be taken to improve those attitudes to ensure that older people are treated, as they should be, with the utmost respect?

Baroness Thornton: My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate. There are three strong mechanisms for assessing the quality of food and nutritional care: the Healthcare Commission's annual health check, in-patient services, and the annual Patient Environment Action Team inspections. These show how seriously the Government are taking the issue.

Elections: Review of Voting Systems

Lord Greaves: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What steps they intend to take in light of the publication of the Ministry of Justice's Review of Voting Systems (Cm 7304).

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, the Government have published a review as a contribution to the continuing debate on electoral reform. The next immediate step is to publish a White Paper on Lords reform that will honour the House of Commons vote in support of a substantially or fully elected Lords. The White Paper will include options on the type of voting system to be used for elections in the second Chamber. The deliberations of the cross-party working group on Lords reform will form the basis of the paper, which will be published within the next few months.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I am sure we all look forward to debating these issues when the White Paper comes. It has taken a long time for the report to arrive from the department, but it is practical; it is a useful mini-encyclopaedia. Does the Minister agree that one of the interesting things in it, for people such as me and my party who are strong supporters of the single transferable vote form of proportional representation, is that not only does the paper suggest that STV is the best form of PR, allowing the constituency link to remain and allowing people to vote for individuals rather than for amorphous party lists, but that it might be the most proportional system of all the ones we have in this country?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is certainly a report for anoraks. It is objective and does not make value judgments; it merely goes through the experiences of the devolved countries and the London and European elections. It is helpful in terms of the wider debate on systems of election more generally, and I hope noble Lords will read it.

Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Lord says it is a report for anoraks. It is yet another great big damned thick square book that the Government have produced. Its price is £33.45 but it does not really say very much, despite the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, describing it as encyclopaedic. What is the cost of this report, rather than the price?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, it is worth every penny. The cost of publishing the review was £30,000.

Lord Tyler: My Lords, is it not rather ironic that the Minister just now and the Minister in the other place keep referring to the necessity of making this House more democratic and representative while MPs in the other place seem not to be very keen on that? As the Minister will recall, he told us that the report was completed before Christmas, yet it seems to have taken a month to get it out. Was that because some ministerial spin was necessary with regard to what was in the report, to put the emphasis on the need to make this House more democratic rather than to end the voting swindle that ends up with unrepresentative MPs at the other end of the Corridor?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: Of course not, my Lords. With the first-past-the-post system we have a clear result and strong government. We would have to think carefully before we changed that.

Lord Trimble: My Lords, the report may be for anoraks but some of us can speak from experience. I have 30 years' experience of fighting elections under STV as well as practical experience of this system. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, that the single transferable vote system is the worst of the lot in terms of its practical consequences. It does not enhance the democratic process. If the noble Lord looked more carefully at our experience, he would see that.

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, I thought that was a very telling comment.

Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, does the Minister recollect that it is now more than 10 years since the Government undertook to allow the British public to express their opinion on voting systems, which was followed by the commissioning of a report by the late Lord Jenkins of Hillhead that was never put to the public for their advice? When will the Government listen to the public on the important question about the rights of the people?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, we have always said that if there were going to be a change to the voting system for the House of Commons, there would need to be a referendum. We have no proposals to change that system.

Lord Inglewood: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the existing electoral arrangements for the European Parliament in this country are both difficult for the public to understand and unsatisfactory from the perspective of those who are elected?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, if the noble Lord is asking me to defend the closed list system, I am afraid I would have great difficulty in so doing.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords—

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, the Minister attacked the Liberal Democrats for supporting PR. Could he justify an election where, let us say, the Conservative Party won 60 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons with the support of only 43 per cent of the electorate?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, there are advantages and disadvantages in all electoral systems. The key advantages of first-past-the-post are that the public have a clear choice, that it produces strong Governments with majorities in the House of Commons and that it does not give undue weight to small parties.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the Liberal Democrats bang on about proportional representation, but does the Minister agree that it is not a system, but merely one of about 12 different systems in each of which there is an umbrella that will produce a different result? Therefore, would it not be better if the Liberal Democrats did not bang on about it so much, but kept to first-past-the-post?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, they certainly bang on, and I suspect that we all will continue to do so on this fascinating question.

Business

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, the third item of business today is the Committee stage of the Climate Change Bill. We did not, as we had hoped, finish the Committee stage last Monday and aim to do so today. With the understanding of the House, it is intended that the Committee will sit late—until 11 pm if necessary—to complete the Committee stage, although I hope that this will not be necessary.

Safety Deposit Current Accounts Bill [HL]

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision for the introduction of a mandatory requirement for banks and building societies to offer safety deposit current accounts to allow money to be stored for safe keeping and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
	Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Bill read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Local Transport Bill [HL]

Read a third time.
	Clause 39 [Quality contracts: application of TUPE]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Clause 39, page 35, line 16, at end insert—
	"(6) A person is guilty of an offence under this subsection if—
	(a) the person provides information in accordance with a requirement imposed by virtue of subsection (5)(c), (b) the information is false or misleading in a material particular, and(c) the person knows that it is or is reckless as to whether it is.
	(7) A person who is guilty of an offence under subsection (6) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale."."

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, on Report, I moved an amendment to what is now Clause 39, which your Lordships' House accepted. This further amendment ties up a small loose end.
	Clause 39 would insert new Section 134B into the Transport Act 2000 to make provision for transfer of employees on TUPE terms when an existing deregulated service is discontinued because a quality contract comes into force. The detailed process for managing the transfer would be set out in regulations. Among other things, such regulations could require the operators of existing services to provide the local transport authority with information about the people whom they employ in providing services which the authority intends to be provided under a quality contract. The reason for this is to facilitate the employees' transfer to a new employer should the contract be awarded to a different operator following the tender process. This information, suitably anonymised, would be made available to tenderers who, if successful, would be obliged to take on any of these employees who were willing to transfer.
	The clause would also amend Section 26 of the Transport Act 1985 and Section 155 of the Transport Act 2000, so as to enable the traffic commissioner to impose licensing or financial sanctions against operators who fail to comply with the request for information.
	However, as well as simply not making a return, an operator could provide false or misleading information, either through carelessness or deliberate deception. It is no secret, as my noble friend Lord Snape has made clear in the past, that many bus operators who are totally opposed to quality contracts schemes and might need some persuading to co-operate in a task such as this even if it were in their interest to do so. They might not take much trouble to ensure that the information was correct and complete. They might even deliberately spread confusion to complicate the implementation process. More seriously, if they were among the tenderers, they might see some advantage to themselves in misleading their competitors about the number of jobs, pay scales and terms of employment. That way, they might deter some potential new operators from putting in a bid, or persuade others to bid higher than they need.
	The question of whether an operator has provided information is one of fact; it is well within the traffic commissioner's competence to judge whether there were mitigating factors or whether the operator has misbehaved and should be penalised. But providing false or misleading information, particularly if it could be done for commercial gain, really requires a criminal sanction and for evidence to be considered by a court of law.
	This amendment would make such behaviour a criminal offence, triable in a magistrates' court and with a maximum penalty at level 4 on the standard scale. That is the same penalty that applies to making a false statement to obtain a public service vehicle operator's licence, a certificate of initial fitness for a bus or coach, or various other documents issued by the traffic commissioners. The severity of the offence could vary from fairly trivial to very serious. Even trivial offences could cause undue hardship to individual workers, but the courts would use their discretion in the usual way. I beg to move.

Lord Rosser: My Lords, given that my noble friend indicated—in my view rightly—that an offence under this amendment could be very serious indeed, how was the decision reached that the penalty set out in the amendment was appropriate? As my noble friend said, the provision of false or misleading information could lead to other operators deciding not to bid or to put in a higher bid than necessary to the advantage of the incumbent operator providing the false or misleading information, who might also be a bidder. Should not the maximum fine that could be imposed, if justified, reflect the financial advantage or gain that could have been secured by the operator providing the false or misleading information? It is surely not much of a deterrent if the maximum fine is way below the financial advantage that might be secured from deliberately or negligently supplying false or misleading data. I should be grateful if my noble friend could indicate why the level of fine indicated in the amendment was deemed appropriate because I do not regard the matters to which he referred as the justification for it as necessarily being commensurate with the potential severity of the offence.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my noble friend asks a reasonable question. I believe that we are right to insert a criminal penalty in the Bill. The nature of the offence will have a bearing on the outcome in the court but I cannot prejudge a magistrate's view on this issue. As I understand it, a level 4 fine reaches a maximum of about £2,500. That sends an important and powerful message to those who seek to flout the legislative intent here, and I believe that it is a most helpful approach. The court will reach a proportionate view when considering this important issue. The penalty is based on similar penalties elsewhere in transport legislation. More serious offences can also fall within the terms of the Fraud Act. That would be for the prosecuting authorities to consider when bringing a charge. I believe that we have the balance about right. This is a useful and necessary encouragement and therefore I am sure that the House will welcome the amendment.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Baroness Chapman: moved Amendment No. 2:
	After Clause 49, insert the following new Clause—
	"Carrying of passengers in wheelchairs in vehicles providing local services
	(1) Section 36 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (c.50) (carrying of passengers in wheelchairs) is amended as follows.
	(2) In subsection (1)(b) for "taxi" substitute "vehicle".
	(3) After subsection (1) insert—
	"(1A) This section also imposes duties on the driver of a designated vehicle other than a regulated taxi if—
	(a) the designated vehicle is being used to provide a local service (within the meaning of section 2 of the Transport Act 1985), and(b) a person falling within paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection (1) has indicated to the driver that he wishes to travel on the service.".
	(4) In each of subsections (2), (3) and (4) for "taxi" (wherever occurring) substitute "vehicle".
	(5) In subsection (5) after "a regulated taxi" insert "or designated vehicle".
	(6) In subsection (6)—
	(a) after "at the time of the alleged offence" insert—"(a) in the case of a regulated taxi,";(b) after "it was required to conform," insert—"(b) in the case of a designated vehicle, the vehicle conformed to the accessibility requirements which applied to it,";(c) for the word "taxi" (in the last place where it appears) substitute "vehicle".
	(7) After subsection (9) insert—
	"(10) The driver of a designated vehicle is exempt from the duties imposed by this section if—
	(a) a certificate of exemption issued to him under this section is in force; and(b) he is carrying the certificate on the vehicle.
	(11) The driver of a designated vehicle who is exempt under subsection (10) must show the certificate, on request, to a person falling within paragraph (a) or (b) of subsection (1).".
	(8) After subsection (11) insert—
	"(12) In this section—
	"designated vehicle" means a vehicle which appears on a list maintained under section 36A;
	"licensing authority" has the meaning given by section 36A."."

Baroness Chapman: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 3, 9 and 11. When I, as a wheelchair user, became a Member of this wonderful place I accepted the fact that some taxi drivers would not take me. During my second year an incident outside this House, when a taxi driver would not take me, caused much consternation among my fellow Peers in the taxi queue. I realised at that point that no wheelchair user should have to accept that and began reporting every incident to the Public Carriage Office. Much to my embarrassment, during my first year of doing so I complained 17 times. It had no other complaints.
	Perhaps I am paranoid, but I doubt that I was the only wheelchair user in London to be refused by a taxi driver. During July 2007 one incident was so bad that the Public Carriage Office decided to take the driver to court as he was in breach of Section 36 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. It was at that point that I and many others became aware that Section 36 had not been enforced. That is where the campaign began. I have to say that once that injustice had been brought to the House's attention it was gratifying to see how quickly and widely people have worked to begin to correct the situation and protect the 1.2 million wheelchair users in this country.
	Since my appearance on BBC breakfast TV I have had many letters from fellow wheelchair users describing many humiliating experiences and encouraging me to ensure that Section 36 is brought in with as wide a scope as possible. I accept that the scope of the amendments within the Bill is quite narrow but by passing these amendments a clear message will be sent to the 1.2 million wheelchair users and to the taxi drivers who wish to exclude us.
	I would like to thank the Minister, the Minister from another place, the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, my noble friend Lord Low, noble Lords from all sides of the House, the Bill team, the Bill council, the Convenor of the Cross Benches plus her researcher Julian Dee, and Will Moy, PA to my noble friend Lord Low. My thanks also need to go to the National Association of Licensing and Enforcement Officers and the Public Carriage Office for its support and information. I beg to move.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I support Amendment No. 2 and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, for all the work that has gone in. I thank the Government for supporting this series of amendments, which we also support.

The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, we also support the amendments and accept that they are a partial answer to what the noble Baroness hopes to bring into force. It demonstrates the value of negotiations off the Floor of the House between stages of scrutiny. I suspect that the House looks forward to the next transport Bill, which may be an occasion for further discussion on the matter.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. I am happy to support the amendment. It has been a good example of government and Cross-Bench co-operation. I congratulate her on having effectively brought the matter to the attention of our House. I pay particular tribute to her, because she is a feisty lady and does a great job campaigning. I do not wish to embarrass her, but she brilliantly demonstrated to us all the problems that some people with particular disabilities experience when making use of taxi services. I am one of those who think that the taxi trade misses a trick when it ignores the opportunity of picking up someone with a particular disability and does not ensure that they can make proper use of taxis.
	No one is perfect, but I am proud to say that my city has gone a long way to try to address some of those problems. It has a flexible and accessible fleet. Most of its drivers are responsible, helpful and courteous in the way in which they deal with a range of sometimes difficult customers. More particularly, they do a good service in helping those with particular disabilities.
	I made it clear on Report that the Government are committed to delivering more accessible taxis and making it easier for disabled passengers to use public transport generally. The intended effect of the noble Baroness's amendment tabled on Report was to apply the duties in Section 36 of the Disability Discrimination Act to the operators of taxis and private hire vehicles used to provide local bus services, which are generally known as taxibuses, and to have effect from 1 August this year. A wider provision which would have commenced Section 36 of the DDA, thereby applying these duties to the drivers of all wheelchair-accessible taxis, was considered to be outside the scope of the Bill. The noble Baroness was very ingenious.
	On Report I highlighted the practical difficulties with the amendment, but, as has been made plain, I was more than happy to facilitate a meeting between the noble Baroness and my right honourable friend the Minister of State, Rosie Winterton. There was a clear consensus in the House that this issue needed to be resolved. In view of that consensus, we were more than happy to assist the noble Baroness in preparing these amendments.
	The noble Baroness has explained that the amendment would apply the duties in Section 36 to the holder of taxibus licences who was providing local bus services using a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. The amendment provides for these provisions to come into force two months after the Bill receives Royal Assent. This ensures that they will take effect as soon as is practicable.
	We are continuing to review the remaining uncommenced sections of the DDA relating to taxis, in which the noble Baroness is very interested. As I explained in December last year in response to her, we are re-evaluating all the options, regulatory and non-regulatory, in light of our better regulation agenda. We will be announcing our proposals shortly.
	In that spirit, and in the spirit of excellent co-operation in the House, and with a strong desire on our part to ensure that we make taxi services as accessible as humanly possible, I warmly support the amendment, which I believes takes us a valuable step forward in our wish to improve access to public transport for disabled people. I wish this good luck.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Baroness Chapman: moved Amendment No. 3:
	After Clause 49, insert the following new Clause—
	"Carrying of passengers in wheelchairs: supplementary provisions
	(1) The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (c.50) is amended as follows.
	(2) After section 36 insert—
	"36A List of wheelchair-accessible vehicles providing local services
	(1) A licensing authority may maintain a list of vehicles falling within subsection (2).
	(2) A vehicle falls within this subsection if—
	(a) it is either a taxi or a private hire vehicle,(b) it is being used or is to be used by the holder of a special licence under that licence, and(c) it conforms to such accessibility requirements as the licensing authority thinks fit.
	(3) "Accessibility requirements" are any requirements for the purpose of securing that it is possible for disabled persons in wheelchairs—
	(a) to get into and out of vehicles in safety, or to be conveyed in safety into and out of vehicles while remaining in their wheelchairs; and(b) to be carried in vehicles in safety and reasonable comfort (whether or not they wish to remain in their wheelchairs).
	(4) The Secretary of State may issue guidance to licensing authorities as to—
	(a) the accessibility requirements which they should apply for the purposes of this section; (b) any other aspect of their functions under or by virtue of this section.
	(5) A licensing authority which maintains a list under subsection (1) must have regard to any guidance issued under subsection (4).
	(6) In this section—
	"licensing authority", in relation to any area, means the authority responsible for licensing taxis or, as the case may be, private hire vehicles in that area;"private hire vehicle" means—(a) a vehicle licensed under section 48 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976;(b) a vehicle licensed under section 7 of the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998;(c) a vehicle licensed under an equivalent provision of a local enactment;(d) a private hire car licensed under section 10 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982;"special licence" has the meaning given by section 12 of the Transport Act 1985 (use of taxis in providing local services);"taxi" includes a taxi licensed under section 10 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.".
	(3) Section 38 (appeal against refusal of exemption certificate) is amended as follows.
	(4) In subsection (1) after "a magistrates' court" insert "or, in Scotland, the sheriff court".
	(5) In subsection (2) for "this section" substitute "subsection (1)".
	(6) At the end of the section insert—
	"(4) Any person who is aggrieved by the decision of a licensing authority to include a vehicle on a list maintained under section 36A may appeal to a magistrates' court or, in Scotland, the sheriff court before the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the date of the inclusion.
	(5) In this section "licensing authority" has the meaning given by section 36A.".
	(7) In consequence of the amendments made by subsections (4) to (6), the heading to section 38 becomes "Appeals".
	(8) In section 68(1) (interpretation), in the definition of "licensing authority", for "section 37A" substitute "sections 36, 36A, 37A and 38".
	(9) In section 70 (commencement etc) after subsection (2) insert—
	"(2A) The following provisions of this Act—
	(a) section 36 so far as it applies to designated vehicles,(b) section 36A, and(c) section 38 (which has already been brought in force in England and Wales by an order under subsection (3)) so far as it extends to Scotland,come into force 2 months after the passing of the Local Transport Act 2008."."
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 59 [Revival of certain powers of PTEs]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 4:
	Clause 59, page 52, leave out lines 8 to 12 and insert—
	""(viii) to let passenger vehicles on hire (with or without trailers for the carriage of goods)—(a) as part of, or in connection with, an agreement providing for service subsidies, to an operator of public passenger transport services within the meaning of section 9A;(b) to a body holding a permit granted under section 19 of the Transport Act 1985 (permits in relation to the use of vehicles by educational and other bodies);"."

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Rosser moved an amendment similar to this on Report. He persuaded me that it would be a useful addition to the Bill, for which I am grateful. The amendment would widen the scope of the leasing power which would be partially restored to passenger transport executives through Clause 59. At present, the clause would only provide power to lease vehicles to operators which are providing bus services under contract to the PTE—either a normal subsidy contract or a quality contract where there is a quality contract scheme in force. These would normally be commercial operators, although they could, of course, include holders of Section 22 permits, who have a right to tender for local bus service contracts.
	If the amendment is accepted, it would also allow PTEs to lease vehicles to the holders of Section 19 permits and would not be conditional on a contract to run a service. Section 19 permits are issued to bodies concerned with education, religion, social welfare, recreation or other activities of benefit to the community. However, their most important function is to enable bodies to provide specialised transport such as Dial-a-Ride services for older and disabled people. A condition of the permit's use is that the services are not operated with a view to profit or, incidentally, to an activity which is carried on with a view to profit. The permit authorises only specified classes of passenger to be carried, which can of course be as broad as those with disabilities and their carers, or as narrow as members of a particular club.
	Many of the groups that provide transport under Section 19 permits receive funding from local authorities or other public bodies in various forms. One practical way of helping them is to purchase suitable vehicles for them to lease. PTEs are currently prevented from doing so because of the removal of power originally in the Transport Act 1968. The amendment rectifies that.
	I know that your Lordships' House has particularly warm feelings for the volunteers who provide community transport services, and I hope that this amendment will be broadly welcomed. I beg to move.

Lord Rosser: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for what he has said, and for bringing forward the amendment, which certainly meets the amendment that I moved on Report. I very much hope that his amendment will have the support of your Lordships' House.

On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 68 [Power to require display of certain information]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 5:
	Clause 68, page 59, line 6, leave out "under this section" and insert "made under this section by the Secretary of State"

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 6 and 12. We had representations in Grand Committee on this issue, and the Government moved an amendment on Report to allow the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers to require prescribed parties to display prescribed information in prescribed places. These provisions now form Clause 68, allowing a requirement to be placed on bus operators to display information about bus passenger representative bodies. The purpose of this group of amendments is simply to clarify the position in Wales. The first two amendments provide that regulations made by Welsh Ministers will be subject to the negative resolution procedure in the National Assembly for Wales, rather than in your Lordships' House and the other place.
	The third amendment provides for Clause 68 to be brought into force in Wales by Welsh Ministers rather than by the Secretary of State. The amendments provide for an approach which is consistent with the Welsh devolution arrangements and with that taken elsewhere in the Bill. I beg to move.

Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, in welcoming this group of amendments I declare an interest as the Assembly Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. I am particularly grateful that the Government, in contradistinction to the Official Opposition as we may see later, are pursuing the agreed objectives of devolution and, indeed, ensuring that the activity of Welsh Ministers is properly scrutinised in the National Assembly. This has become an important issue and was addressed yesterday when the first measure on the NHS Redress Act was referred to. The question of regulation-making powers by Welsh Ministers and their ability to be subject to proper scrutiny, through negative resolution procedures and by committee in the Assembly, was highlighted as important. I am grateful to the Government for clarifying this matter.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 6:
	Clause 68, page 59, line 7, at end insert—
	"( ) A statutory instrument containing regulations made under this section by the Welsh Ministers is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the National Assembly for Wales."
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 113 [Powers of the National Assembly for Wales]:

Lord Glentoran: had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 7:
	Clause 113, leave out Clause 113

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I have pursued this point throughout the Bill, always in hope that the Secretary of State would tidy up Clause 113. By that I mean it to say exactly what he said to me in a private meeting in the office of the Leader of the House not very long ago. In that meeting with a number of Peers, he made it very clear what he wanted this part of the Bill for, which was to help to pay for the M4 and the bypass around it. At that time he said absolutely clearly what the purpose of the clause was. The officials were there, and I said, "Peter, why don't you put that in the Bill?", to which I did not get an answer. I am still hoping that this will be put in the Bill before it reaches another place. I am delighted that Paul Murphy is now the Secretary of State for Wales. I have known him as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and as chairman of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body. I wish him a fair term and look forward to working with him. In not moving this amendment this afternoon, I am living in hope that the wisdom of Paul will prevail when it gets to another place.

Baroness Hayman: To facilitate debate, perhaps the noble Lord could move the amendment and then later withdraw it.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I beg to move.

Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, I am of course deeply disappointed. I had thought that the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, following his recent educational trip to Cardiff, would have heard of the statement so clearly made on the Welsh media by my colleague in Plaid Cymru the Deputy First Minister and the Minister for Transport. He indicated absolutely clearly, not at any secret meeting, but publicly on the BBC on "The Politics Show", that it would be the intention of Welsh Ministers to use any powers derived in measure-making form from the framework powers in the Bill precisely to construct new roads. I would have thought that that would have been a very satisfactory response to the official opposition spokesman in this House.
	I will just pursue, without repeating myself, the constitutional point that I made a number of times earlier. The noble Lord must understand that the derogation of powers by the framework powers in Westminster Bills will continue to be the road to devolution alongside the Order in Council procedure with the proposed orders. I think that he is setting himself against the position taken during the debates on the devolution Bill on the constitution of Wales, the Government of Wales Act 2006. He prays in aid Paul Murphy. I join him in warmly welcoming Paul Murphy. The return of Murphy as Secretary of State for Wales reminds me of the first sentence of that famous novel by Samuel Beckett:
	"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new".
	I say that not to indicate any literary prowess on my part, but just to say how delightful it is to see Paul Murphy returning to that post. He will, I am sure, understand the constitutional situation that has developed since he was there before, and the law-making powers that the Assembly now has, derived by two routes. I hope that he will have an early discussion with the noble Lord, so that the noble Lord too will be enlightened about the many roads of devolution.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords—

Lord Brougham and Vaux: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but he should take a step backwards to the next Bench, where he will be in order to speak. He is not allowed to speak from the Bishops' Benches.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, the noble Lord moved his amendment so well, with such eloquence and at such length, that he deserves a full reply from my noble friend—as I can still call him, because he called me so in another place. I was puzzled why the amendment was tabled. It seemed at one level to be a throwback to an earlier view by the Conservative Opposition of the Assembly, but to anyone objective this proposal is four-square within the remit of the devolution settlement. Indeed, any part not within that remit is excluded, namely the traffic signs. Therefore, having hoped to understand the motive for this, I remain puzzled, but I am glad that it will not be pressed.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I spoke on this clause and the issues that it involves at Second Reading and I thought that that would be enough. I pointed out that, in my view, it was very unwise of the National Assembly to seek these extensive powers, which are not being sought for England. Indeed, when it was proposed that England should have such powers, there were 1.8 million hits on the No. 10 website objecting to the proposal. Therefore, the powers for England are not in the Bill.
	The reputation of the National Assembly will not be enhanced in Wales or elsewhere by the acquisition of these powers. We all know that roads are vital, particularly in Wales, to the national economy. That is especially so for the major east-west routes: the M4 in the south and the A55 and A5 in the north. It is inconceivable that there should be charges for the use of those roads in Wales but not in England. We are assured that these powers will be used only to help to finance the Newport southern bypass. However, as my noble friend on the Front Bench pointed out, the powers are not so confined in the Bill. What use is made of them is entirely dependent on Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government; they may decide that other schemes require the use of these powers. I hope that they will not use the powers to the disadvantage of the people of Wales or as a means simply to raise money.

Lord Elis-Thomas: My Lords, does or does not the noble Lord accept the assurances given by Mr Ieuan Wyn Jones, a former colleague of ours in another place whom I know the noble Lord respects personally—indeed, he represents the island from which the noble Lord draws his ancestral roots—that his recent statement on the BBC was a description of Welsh government policy?

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, of course I accept the words of Mr Ieuan Wyn Jones, who was good enough to tell me the precise intentions personally. However, the whole point is this: the use of these powers will not necessarily be confined to that individual Minister, who holds the important position of Deputy First Minister. What about the future? We transfer these powers for a considerable length of time and irrespective of any individual office holder. This House has never refused the National Assembly for Wales anything and my noble friend on the Front Bench and I do not propose that we deny it these powers. However, we are honour bound to point out the inherent dangers in the misuse or abuse of these powers in Wales.

The Earl of Mar and Kellie: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, seeks to protect the National Assembly for Wales from making mistakes. In a sentence, let me say that these Benches are content with Clause 113 being in the Bill.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, listening to the comments of noble Lords this afternoon, I was initially somewhat puzzled. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, seemed to be both moving and not moving his amendment in the same breath. I might be wrong, but that is how it sounded to me and I wondered why this was. Then I worked it out. He wanted to move the amendment but he also wanted to withdraw it later, having heard what I had to say, so I shall put on record what is in front of me to remind the House why Clause 113 is here.
	My noble friend Lady Morgan explained very clearly in Committee and on Report that we have made a commitment to draft parliamentary Bills in a way which gives the Assembly the wider and more permissive powers to determine the detail of how provisions should be implemented in Wales. This clause simply inserts a new matter into Schedule 5 to the 2006 Act to allow the Assembly to make its own legislation in relation to the making, operation and enforcement of charging schemes in respect of trunk roads in Wales. Trunk roads comprise the network of strategic through routes managed by Welsh Ministers, accounting for roughly 5 per cent of roads in Wales by length. It would be then for the Welsh Assembly to consider whether, and if so how, it would be appropriate to exercise those powers. This would be done through an Assembly measure, which would need to be debated in the Assembly and subject to its scrutiny procedures.
	I do not know what my right honourable friend Mr Hain said when he met the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. I was not there to listen. But in general terms I understand that Welsh Ministers have made it very clear that, if they were to introduce road pricing, it would be to tackle areas with the worst congestion problems. Their intention is very clear, and we have also been very clear that we do not see these powers as enabling tax raising, which was a charge the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, made at an earlier stage in the legislation. The Government of Wales Act does not allow us to devolve tax-raising powers. My noble friend Lady Morgan told the House on Report that the application of proceeds does not affect whether something is a tax or a charge. That depends on the link between the payment and the service received by the payer.
	It is important for public accountability that revenue raised by road-pricing schemes is spent on transport. We have been clear about that from the outset. The framework provision is clear, too, that the Welsh Assembly Government must require any revenue raised by a trunk-roads charging scheme to be spent on transport-related purposes. That would mean using the revenue on the provision of transport infrastructure and services in Wales to help develop the transport network and, linked to that, economic regeneration in parts of Wales. I am sure those measures would be in line with the Welsh Assembly Government's transportation policies and programme. It has been said before in the House that trunk-road charges are already within the legislative competence of both the Scottish Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly. We are therefore not creating a precedent with these Welsh provisions; we are simply following the path as set out in the devolution settlement in line with the Government of Wales Act.
	I am looking forward to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, withdrawing his amendment. Some nonsense has been said about the intention behind this part of the Bill. I have been very grateful for the support from the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas. With all his experience on these matters he has been most helpful. I am clear in my mind and the Government are certainly clear that we are simply acting to ensure that the Government of Wales Act works well and fairly, and that the Assembly can take measures which make much more sense to it in dealing with the problems that it has to tackle on a regular basis, such as congestion on the trunk-road network of Wales. I am sure that the Assembly will make intelligent and forensic good use of that opportunity and that the people of Wales will welcome that.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for those words. They were not, of course, what I was hoping to hear. As I said I would earlier—I apologise for confusing the protocol; it is time I did a few more Bills—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 115 [Vehicles authorised to be used under operator's licence: fees]:

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 8:
	Clause 115, page 88, line 35, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
	"( ) Section 263 of the TA 2000 (addition of specified vehicles to operator's licence) is amended as follows.
	( ) In the subsection (6) that is to be substituted for section 5(6) of the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995 (c.23)—
	(a) in the opening words, after "is not authorised to be used under that licence by virtue of subsection (1)" insert "on or after the relevant day";(b) in paragraph (b), for "a prescribed fee" substitute "the prescribed fee (if any)".
	( ) After that subsection add—
	"(6A) For the purposes of subsection (6) "the relevant day" is the latest of the following days—
	(a) the day on which the vehicle was first in the lawful possession of the licence holder,(b) the day on which the licence came into force,(c) if a day not more than one month after the later of those days is prescribed for the purpose, the day so prescribed."."

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this amendment has to be considered with Amendment No. 10, so I shall speak to them both. I explained on Report that we were considering tabling a further amendment to the as yet uncommenced Section 263 of the Transport Act 2000, which currently abolishes the "margin concession" for goods vehicle operators. I am sure that that section of the Act is widely understood.
	Section 5(2) of the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995 currently requires the registration number of every vehicle used by a goods vehicle operator to be specified on the operator's licence. This is primarily to aid roadside vehicle enforcement by VOSA and the police. However, when a goods vehicle operator adds a new vehicle to its fleet, it has a one-month grace period—a sort of window—before the registration number must be specified on the operator's licence to aid operational flexibility. That is called the margin concession.
	I am aware that, understandably, concerns have been raised by the haulage industry that commencing Section 263 to abolish the margin could impose a disproportionate administrative burden, particularly in situations where goods vehicles are hired out to operators on very short-term contracts. VOSA is also concerned about the considerable additional costs that could be imposed on it, which would be passed on to the industry through the fees it charges.
	Therefore, following a commitment made in the 2004 White Paper, The Future of Transport, the Department for Transport announced in November 2006 that, as part of a package of reforms to streamline the operator licensing system for buses and goods vehicles, it would consider options for minimising the burden of immediate notification. That work is continuing.
	However, we think that it would be sensible to further amend Section 263 of the Transport Act 2000 now to allow further flexibility, should the move to immediate notification not prove to be the best solution. Therefore, the amendment is helpful. It would still allow for immediate notification—either when the vehicle first came under the lawful possession of the operator or when the operator's licence was first granted by the Traffic Commissioner—but it would also provide additional flexibility for the Secretary of State to specify in regulations a grace period of up to one month. This would allow the margin to be reduced in the event that we need to balance improving enforcement against minimising additional administrative burdens. Any changes to the existing margin—either to abolish it or to use the regulation-making power—would of course be subject to full consultation with the traffic commissioners and the goods vehicle industry.
	I should add that the amendment would maintain the flexibility introduced in the Report stage amendment on fees to allow the levying of a fee for specifying a new vehicle on the licence to be optional, rather than mandatory as at present. I beg to move.

On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 121 [Extent]:

Baroness Chapman: moved Amendment No. 9:
	Clause 121, page 91, line 28, at end insert—
	"( ) sections (Carrying of passengers in wheelchairs in vehicles providing local services) and (Carrying of passengers in wheelchairs: supplementary provisions);"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 10:
	Clause 121, page 91, line 34, at end insert—
	"( ) section 115;"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 122 [Commencement]:

Baroness Chapman: moved Amendment No. 11:
	Clause 122, page 92, line 10, after "Sections" insert "(Carrying of passengers in wheelchairs in vehicles providing local services), (Carrying of passengers in wheelchairs: supplementary provisions),"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: moved Amendment No. 12:
	Clause 122, page 92, line 23, leave out "and 61 to 64" and insert ", 61 to 64 and 68"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Schedule 6 [Amendments of financial provisions relating to schemes]:

Lord Hanningfield: moved Amendment No. 13:
	Schedule 6, page 123, line 4, at end insert—
	"(1C) The net proceeds of any charging scheme shall not negatively influence any other funding given to an authority."

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, we have tabled this amendment once again, as we feel that the matter that it relates to deserves further attention and we would like the Government to comment further.
	We have often questioned the motivation behind the Government pushing forward local road-charging schemes, rather than national ones. That was commented on just now in the debate about Wales. We have argued that local schemes will allow government the huge benefit of observation with none of the political responsibility. As a localist, I welcome local decision-making. That can be justified, provided that local authorities are the drivers behind the introduction of road-pricing schemes.
	The provision in the Bill for all revenue raised from road-pricing schemes to be spent on local transport policies is also reassuring. However, another common opinion is that the transport innovation fund provided by central government has helped to push local authorities towards road pricing. We would not like road pricing to be pushed in this manner. One potential method of turning encouragement into coercion could be the reduction of grants given by local government when funds from road-pricing schemes start to be introduced. More subtly, the assumption that a certain amount of money could be raised could force local authorities to raise funds through road charging without the choice to do so—the Government forcing them to do so through funding policies.
	I have already stated that one of my main concerns about road charging is that it represents the partial devolution of funding, and that local areas would be better served if they were given all road taxes. If the Bill proposed a radical overhaul of road financing and taxation, we could be more receptive. As it stands, however, I would like the existing forms that local authorities receive to be protected following the enactment of the Bill.
	On Report, the Minister stated that road pricing would have no impact on the revenue support grant or on local authorities' ability to raise council tax revenues. However, I am not wholly reassured by this. There are plenty of examples of cases in which Governments of all parties have assumed that local government can do various things—the supposed impact on efficiency savings is one. We would like a further commitment from the Government—which is the reason why I have raised this matter again today—that this will not be the case. These are very difficult times for local authorities, with grants and income frequently being reduced or tipped away in one way or another. I understand that the Government are unlikely to accept the amendment, but it is very important to place it on the record. There is a very strong feeling about this issue in local government, and I would like the Minister to comment further. I beg to move.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, I was intrigued to see that the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, had tabled this amendment again, because I felt that the answer that we received from the Minister went as far as a Minister can go at this stage in giving that reassurance. I share some of the noble Lord's disquiet, but it is very difficult for the Minister to give assurances, simply because local government finance has now become so complex that very few local authorities—I say this in all seriousness—fully understand how their grant has been calculated. When they query it, it is not uncommon for them to find that the civil servants who put the numbers together do not entirely understand it either. It is very common for both government and local authorities to assert opposite things and for both to be correct, bizarrely enough. Regardless of any promises made by the Minister, it would be very difficult in practice to work out whether an authority had been negatively treated. The most important point here is that individual schemes need to be understood; local authorities will want reassurance about how their income will be treated at that level.
	I share the noble Lord's concern that central government has rather bludgeoned some local authorities into considering road-user charging simply by saying, "If you don't have a road charging element, we won't give you transport innovation funding". Central government has used that rather heavy stick with which to beat local authorities, but unfortunately while we have the current local authority arrangements whereby central government calls the shots, that is sadly inevitable.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his explanation of the purpose of the amendment. I am a bit disappointed in him because he is a good localist, and like me he has enjoyed many years' grace and pleasure in local government. I thought that he had listened to what I said the last time around, and mistakenly assumed that we would not see this amendment again. The amendment is very limited, since it would add only to the provisions of Schedule 23 to the Greater London Authority Act, to state, in that instance, that the funding provided to authorities in London should not be negatively influenced by any revenue from a local charging scheme.
	As the noble Lord observed on Report—he probably did again today; I did not catch it, but may have missed it—the public acceptability of schemes such as road pricing increases when that revenue is linked to spending on transportation. That has to be the case, as I made clear to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. Some of the Government's own research establishes this important point and we acknowledge it. The Bill therefore contains provisions to give charging authorities and the general public certainty that all net revenue from charging schemes will be spent precisely on transport policies. Such provisions have been supported for that reason.
	As for central government funding, I am sure that noble Lords will be aware—given her experience, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, will certainly be aware—that block capital funding and revenue support grant are currently allocated on the basis of a broad formula. The noble Baroness says that the formula is difficult to understand, and I agree; it is very difficult. When I used to look at our annual budget with the old borough treasurer—latterly with the director of finance—it took a long time to unravel the various elements. Parts of it always seemed unfair because they did not seem to apply to us while other bits did, and I could see their wisdom. Yet others seemed to relate to London boroughs rather than Brighton. But there we go.
	In any case, revenue support grant has to reflect the ability to raise council tax revenues and that relationship has to be understood. However, such formulae generally do not take into account the various alternative sources of revenue available to authorities. Across the country, authorities benefit from different streams of revenue. Portsmouth, I think, earns £5 million a year—perhaps a little more—from its port. Some authorities have bus companies. The director of transportation services in Ipswich, which I visited recently, told me that their bus company returned some three-quarters of a million pounds a year to revenues. So the authority was able to make use of profit it made in one area perhaps to suppress levels of council tax or raise standards of services, whichever it chose to do. There is always that ability to raise revenue support from the locality. In the case of the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, perhaps Essex has a big profit motive tucked away somewhere in its budget, though I am sure it is not expressed in those terms—they are probably not allowed to express it in those terms. But I am sure that Essex County Council makes income from many of its services which it then applies more generally across the range of services that it provides to its communities.
	As I made clear on Report, there are no plans to change our current policy on this. Regarding the allocation of specific grants for major schemes, the department takes into consideration the level of local contribution, including, for example, any developer contributions and any revenue likely to be generated by the scheme. That is an important aspect of an authority's business case and of the calculation of the scheme's value for money. That has always been the situation for major transport schemes, because it is fair that revenue from any transport fares is factored into the business case of a scheme. We do not see that road-pricing or road-charging schemes are any different.
	It is perhaps also worth reminding noble Lords that the Government annually provide £1.5 billion in capital funding as well as substantial revenue support for local and regional transport outside London. Indeed, funding for local transport in every English region outside London has more than doubled since 2000. I think that that is a pretty enviable record. If someone had said a decade or more ago that we were going to do that, there would have been gasps of disbelief. As for funding in London, as well as the revenue support grant given to the London borough councils, the Greater London Authority also receives a transport grant from the Department for Transport. That is a substantial amount of money which, as I said, has more than doubled over the past few years. The transport grant up to 2017-18 was agreed between the department and Transport for London as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007.
	I also remind noble Lords that the Government are working with local authorities to develop local road-charging schemes. Additional funding on top of what I have already discussed is available from the transport innovation fund to support authorities' packages of local transport improvements combined with road charging. The £200 million a year earmarked up to 2014 is in addition to any other funding sources. This is a substantial commitment of extra funding for areas taking forward local road-charging schemes and the very opposite of the reduction in funding which the noble Lord's amendment suggests.
	I refute the allegation that we are bearing down on or pressing local authorities to bring forward pricing schemes. I would not want there to be a suggestion that we are using the transport innovation fund as a form of blackmail, because that is not the case. What we genuinely want to see is innovation. We hope that this legislation will assist in the process so that innovations are brought forward; so that smart and intelligent bids are made to tackle road congestion issues and improve the quality of local transportation; and so that local authorities work closely with their transport providers and the public to ensure that standards continue to rise. What we want to see from the Bill is more people making better use of public transport, particularly bus services. It is in everyone's interest that we get more passengers on to buses. The welcome improvements in bus passenger numbers over the past few years need to be spread across the country so that we achieve a much more effective and efficient use of this form of transportation.
	I have given the noble Lord a rather long reply because I want to put his mind at rest on this. I hope he does not feel the need to press the issue to a Division. I would like to think that he will take my assurances at face value.

Lord Hanningfield: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer. As I said when introducing the amendment, I wanted to hear more about this from the Government because this legislation, which is coming to the end of its consideration in this House, could result in innovations and local schemes that improve the transport infrastructure for transport of all kinds. I would rather that such innovation came up from the bottom than have it forced on us by government. That is where this will work well, by leaving it to local initiatives that enjoy local support.
	However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, pointed out, local funding is extremely complicated these days. In my other role as leader of Essex County Council I am currently producing a budget worth some £2 billion. We thought that the interest charges on £7 million-worth of transport infrastructure would be supported by national government but suddenly discovered that it was not so. The result is that about another £700,000 now has to be found. I live daily with the uncertainties of local government funding; as I said in my introduction, all Governments tend to maintain those uncertainties. I just wanted to establish on the record that national government will not see this as a substitute for the funding that they provide, and that it will be used for local initiatives and local schemes aimed at improving transport infrastructure—for buses, for rail and so on, as we discussed. I have now put my bit on the record and we shall see what happens. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	An amendment (privilege) made.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in our debates on the Bill. I especially thank the Bill team and officials, who have done a splendid job. I have already thanked the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, once today. We have given the Bill—which I thought might generate a little more controversy than it did—a good and fair hearing. The Committee, Report and Third Reading stages were very constructive and I congratulate all who took part in those debates. We have a better Bill than we started with. I am sure that we all wish it well as it goes to another place for it to be given fair consideration there. I also thank my noble friend Lady Crawley, who, as ever, has been extremely helpful and supportive in helping us through some tricky times with legislation.
	Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)
	On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Payments into the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund etc. Order 2007

Lord Davies of Oldham: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 25 October 2007 be approved.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we all want to ensure that we can deliver the best ever Olympic and Paralympic Games, with venues and facilities of which the country can be proud and a legacy of regeneration, inspiration and sporting excellence unsurpassed in recent times. Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, has already said that we have put in place the best preparations ever seen for an Olympic Games at this stage. We know that the Games remain popular throughout the United Kingdom, with 76 per cent of our population being pleased that London is staging the Games in 2012. We now have a funding package which is robust and sufficient to cover the assessed risks.
	The Government value the way in which all parties have supported the 2012 Games. Cross-party consensus is important to their success. I recognise, of course, the importance of scrutiny and I pay tribute to both Opposition Front Benches—to the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Clement-Jones, and their colleagues—for the work they have done both in establishing that consensus and subjecting the Government's work to close scrutiny during the period that has elapsed thus far. We still have a long road to travel.
	These are reasons why the Minister for the Olympics provided Parliament with the ODA baseline budget in December, and why she has agreed to provide every six months a full update on progress with the Olympics and spend against budget—a breakdown was provided in December. On 22 January we published our first annual report on the London 2012 Games.
	The order puts in place a vital component of the Olympic package—£1.085 billion from the National Lottery, made up of £410 million, as previously confirmed, and an additional £675 million as announced in March 2007. Without this funding the Games cannot be delivered. We are well aware of the concerns that have been raised, not only about the increase in costs but about the fact that the non-Olympic Lottery good causes will be contributing more than previously anticipated. We have taken account of these concerns and have made important assurances.
	First, there will be no further diversion from lottery good causes to fund the Olympics. We will not continue to collect funding from the planned Olympic Lottery game after the target of £750 million for that is reached. The Government will examine again—I know this is a cause dear to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—the case for a move to gross profits tax for the lottery. We will ask the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission to explore cases of grey lotteries that give rise to concern. The revised memorandum of understanding agreed with the Mayor of London includes a new profit-sharing arrangement for land sales after the Games, making provision for the non-Olympic Lottery good causes to get back all of the additional contribution of £675 million which is being taken over the next few years.
	We have agreed with the Big Lottery Fund that it will honour its commitment to give 60 per cent to 70 per cent of its funding to the voluntary and community sector, and it has extended that beyond the Olympic period. The Minister for the Olympics has pledged to provide six-monthly updates to Parliament and quarterly briefings to opposition Members on the progress of the Olympic budget.
	We have also done a great deal to protect the Lottery from what could have been a much greater impact. Under the previous proposals the Lottery was meeting 44 per cent of the budget. Now the Exchequer is meeting the largest proportion—64 per cent—against 23 per cent from the Lottery and 13 per cent from the mayor. As a result of a consultation we undertook with the lottery distributors and key stakeholders, the order sets out 15 quarterly-stage transfers since the distributors indicated that that would minimise the impact. I make it clear that money will not be transferred unless it is required. The order merely permits a series of 15 transfers starting on or after 1 February 2009, with the final transfer on or after 1 August 2012. In the mean time the arts, heritage and sport will continue to receive substantial core funding from the Government, safeguarded thanks to the recent DCMS spending settlement that includes real-term rises as well as large amounts of lottery funding for the non-Olympic causes. Over £5 billion will be available between 2008-09 and 2012-13.
	On 15 January in the other place, Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the order. The figures were 357 votes to nine. Members of Parliament clearly accepted the importance of the order in ensuring the success of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and accepted the Government's clear assurances. I hope this House will agree the order today. I commend it to the House and trust that I can count on its support. I beg to move.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 25 October 2007 be approved. First Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee, First Report from the Merits Committee.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)

Lord Clement-Jones: rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, at end to insert "but this House calls on Her Majesty's Government to mitigate the impact of this draft order through exploration of other funding options and to guarantee that the Arts, heritage, sport, charity and voluntary sectors adversely affected by the draft Order benefit from any increase in land value in the Olympic site following completion of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games".

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his concise and clear introduction to the Motion. Unusually, I want to start by wishing the new Minister for Work and Pensions well—not something I often do. The DCMS is a field where I am glad to say that politics is not always red in tooth and claw. James Purnell, in his brief period as Secretary of State, consulted and maintained good relationships with opposition spokesmen in both Houses. He had his successes with the Treasury, too, which is rather unusual for a DCMS Minister; except in the field of tourism, he managed to increase the resources available to the organisations directly funded by the DCMS in the last spending round, as the Minister referred to. I hope the new Minister, Mr Andy Burnham, will take a leaf out of his predecessor's book for the future. His Treasury credentials will be particularly welcome, as I will mention later.
	There has been understandable concern about the diversion of lottery money to the Olympics and the potential impact of such a move on the arts, heritage and other causes supported by the Big Lottery Fund and other lottery distributors—even on grass-roots sport itself. Four years ago, when the Government proposed that money be taken from the National Lottery good causes to fund part of the Olympics, we on these Benches, along with all the other political parties, agreed to it because we believed that the benefits that would accrue to sport, culture, heritage, regeneration and tourism, in terms of the Games and their legacy, outweighed the potential damage to good causes. As my honourable friend Don Foster pointed out in the debate in another place a fortnight ago, we assumed that this would be a one-off but of course we were wrong.
	I do not want to dwell overly long on the issue of the rise in estimated costs of staging the Olympics, but it is relevant to our discussion today. I am pleased that Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, has pledged regular updates.
	We were originally told in the bid book that the Olympic budget would be £2.375 billion. In 2006, that figure rose to £3.3 billion and was later reported as rising to £5.1 billion. As officially announced by the former Secretary of State, Tessa Jowell, last March, we are now looking at a figure of £9.3 billion, which included a contingency of £2.75 billion, but represented a threefold rise in the original estimate. That contingency has now been reduced to £2 billion. At that time, the total funding from the lottery was expected to be £340 million from sports distributors and £410 million from non-sports good causes. Additionally, part of the package was the £750 million to be raised by new, Olympics-related lottery games.
	Today, after a rather long interval of 10 months, we are being asked whether we are prepared to authorise a further take from lottery good causes to fill the hole in the budget. We have always made it clear that we are strong supporters of the Olympics, and we want the Olympic and Paralympic Games to succeed. We debated the potential—indeed, potent—legacy of the Olympics just a fortnight ago.
	Many people and organisations, however, have strong concerns that a further cut will damage the very bodies that will deliver that legacy—the Heritage Lottery Fund, the NCVO, the Voluntary Art Network and the Central Council of Physical Recreation are good examples. In these circumstances, it would have been easy to be negative and simply to blame the Government. Instead, the Liberal Democrats decided to come up with constructive proposals to find ways of getting additional money to the lottery good causes which could make up for the cuts and which at the same time would allow the Games and their legacy to be delivered. That is what the amendment that I propose today and earlier discussions with the former Secretary of State have been about.
	First, we have said clearly that we want a cap on the £750 million raised by the Olympics-related lottery games. I am delighted that we now have on record an assurance not only from the previous Secretary of State but also from the Minister today that no more than £750 million will be taken from the Olympics scheme. This pledge has been welcomed by a wide range of voluntary and charitable organisations.
	Cannibalisation, where people switch from games that supported the traditional good causes to Olympic-related games—it has been discussed previously—is not therefore now of prime concern. What is of importance, however, is the speed at which the £750 million is raised. The original target was one-third by the Beijing Olympics and two-thirds during the four years thereafter. If it is raised any faster, good causes will be hurt. What assurances can the Minister give in that respect? Quite apart from that, we have previously heard an assurance in the other place, and again today, that there will be no further raid on the lottery good causes to fund the Olympics. We on these Benches welcome this.
	We propose also that the Government carefully consider the proposal to change taxation on the National Lottery to gross profits tax. That is a regime in which tax is paid after, rather than before, prizes have been paid to players. GPT allows the operator to increase prize payouts on selected lottery products, thereby stimulating sales growth while protecting and ultimately enhancing absolute returns to the Exchequer and good causes.
	We know that the Treasury was initially sceptical about GPT, but I am delighted that it appears now to have become agnostic about it. The DCMS has moved from being agnostic to being advocates. Camelot should be congratulated on its persistent campaigning on this issue during the past five years. It is deeply ironic that the lottery, which provides such a huge benefit to good causes, is not taxed on this basis, yet all the other gaming sectors—bookmakers, casinos, football pools and bingo operators—benefit from a GPT regime. PricewaterhouseCoopers has calculated that if such a change were to go ahead, something like an extra £45 million per annum would be generated for good causes. This figure might well be greater under the terms of the new Camelot licence, which starts next year.
	The former Secretary of State has said that he will carry out a review and these Benches welcome the signs that serious work on evaluating the benefits of GPT is being done in the Treasury. Can the Minister confirm that the review is being carried out with urgency and that if the results of such a review are positive the change to GPT could be announced in this year's Budget so that GPT could be applied in the first year of operation of the new National Lottery licence? Can the Minister say when the review will be completed? The new Secretary of State was, in the immediate past, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury so he is in an outstanding position to understand and influence the Treasury and his former ministerial colleague, Angela Eagle, in this respect.
	Thirdly, we ask the Secretary of State to examine what he called the grey area of lottery-style gains. Most people who play the National Lottery know that a proportion goes towards supporting good causes. However, in recent years gambling operators have introduced lottery-style betting games, especially online, which they admit are intended to compete with the National Lottery. They look like National Lottery games but they are run solely for commercial gain and have no good cause benefits. Independent experts have shown that if we can eliminate those games so that players switch back to the National Lottery, it would mean on a conservative estimate an extra £44 million a year—more than £500 million by 2019—for good causes. The fact is that although the regulation of commercial gaming was modernised in the Gambling Act, no such process has taken place with the regulation and legislation governing the National Lottery. We need to ensure that the National Lottery, with its philanthropic purpose, is protected from encroachment, whether through the liberalisation of gambling advertising, the impact of society lotteries, welcome though many of them may be, and the spread of online lottery games run by bookmakers, who, of course, as I mentioned earlier—to add insult to injury—are taxed on a GPT basis.
	Fourthly, we ask for clarification of the memorandum of understanding between the Secretary of State and the Mayor of London, which specifies in some detail how expenditure from different sources, including the costs of the land incurred by the LDA and the £675 million from the National Lottery, will be recouped from land sales by the LDA following the Olympics and Paralympics.
	There has been much debate in the other place and in the media about what the eventual value of the Olympic Park will be. Will it be £1.8 billion? Will it be £1 billion? As a long-standing London resident, I have in the past consistently undervalued the likely growth in value of London property and I do not believe I am alone. So I doubt whether it is particularly useful at this stage to speculate on the eventual value of the Olympic Park. However, I hope that the Minister can give an absolute undertaking that the memorandum of understanding is binding on all parties, including the mayor and the DCMS, and that no attempt will be made to try to change the priority on the proceeds of the sale of the land.
	This is a sensible package of measures on which to move forward. If we add the possibility of additional money through the third Camelot licence, which could lead to between £600 million and £1 billion extra for good causes, and the increase in DCMS funding for various bodies as a result of last year's CSR settlement, we have a context which at least holds out the possibility that good causes, taken over the long run, will not be disadvantaged. Indeed, if all these proposals come to fruition in due course more than £400 million could be returned to good causes before the 2012 Games. I beg to move.
	Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, at end to insert "but this House calls on Her Majesty's Government to mitigate the impact of this draft order through exploration of other funding options and to guarantee that the arts, heritage, sport, charity and voluntary sectors adversely affected by the draft order benefit from any increase in land value in the Olympic site following completion of the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games".—(Lord Clement-Jones.)

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for moving the amendment and support the entire thrust behind it. It is important to put on record that the shopping list that the Minister read out in his introduction to the Statutory Instrument is arrived at entirely as a result of strong, co-ordinated opposition work both in another place and in the Corridors.
	Having said that, I thank the Ministers Tessa Jowell and James Purnell for listening to us, and for giving us their time. We had a longish session in the Corridors of your Lordships' House a week or two ago, out of which we gained a great deal, much of which we have heard today from the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones.
	It is worth looking at the shambles that the lottery had become under Labour in recent years. When they came to power they totally changed the raison d'être of John Major's initial vision—that it should be responsive to the electorate and to people in the nation who had projects and ideas that they wanted to follow through—to make it almost a slush fund for government Ministers who had a good idea. When we come to power in a year or so we shall certainly drive to change that back.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate that when Labour came to power in 1997 we found that the National Lottery was in effect an enormous engine of redistribution from families on modest incomes to families on comfortable incomes, and that was the difficulty?

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that intervention, but that is surely the difference between one party's politics and another's. When the Government, the nation and my noble friend Lord Coe, who is in his place, won the Olympic Games for the United Kingdom and in particular for London, there was a scramble to start sorting out the numbers. My complaint was that there was not enough transparency. We had gone into the game completely together, but we did not get the transparency we were looking for. I suspect that we did not get it because the competence to provide those figures initially was not there. However, one of the good things that has happened after serious pressure from the media, ourselves and the Liberal Democrats is that the house is now in order. I am relaxed to say that I believe that the management set-up of the ODA, LOCOG and the LDA are thoroughly competent to deliver what we expect them to deliver within the budget.
	I am especially pleased that Tessa Jowell has agreed to come to the House of Commons every six months to bare her soul and the Government's on the state of play in the numbers and that cash forecasts will be available. The interim meetings that she has promised us—I already have dates in my diary from her office for the quarterly meetings—will give us another opportunity to understand what is going on in a supportive if at times critical—because that is often supportive—and helpful role.
	One of the issues that I have been pushing is that the communication with the nation as a whole still needs to be raised. We are now reading about major cities looking forward to hosting training camps and so on, but when I talk to people—I have been wearing this logo for a week or so—there is still a lack of understanding in the country about the budgeting and the management of the funding. The press needs to be given more detailed education. We can then go forward.
	In principle, we are with the Government and right behind the game. I have no trouble in supporting the Motion with what the Minister has given us today.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, all the political parties were in favour of the Olympic bid. All were delighted and proud that it was decided that the Olympics and the Paralympics should be staged in London in 2012. That delight and pride continues to be felt strongly by the public. However, the question of how we were to pay for all this did arise. It was always envisaged that a substantial proportion of the cost should come from the National Lottery. Indeed, with the enlarged budget the proportion to be funded from the National Lottery is smaller than was previously anticipated. Those who suggest that some other way should be found to pay for this great project must say what additional taxes they would like to raise or what programmes of public expenditure they would like to see cut.
	Tough negotiations took place. The toughest of all, I suspect, were those between the DCMS and the Treasury. If the DCMS had not fought so doughtily and effectively, the good causes would have lost considerably more for the period following 2009. Of course, tough negotiations also took place between the distributors and those who cared very much about the good causes across the country and Ministers at the DCMS. However, the negotiation was concluded, and we have the situation that we do.
	I think that all of us welcomed the protection that it was possible to give to the voluntary sector. All of us who greatly value the arts, heritage, film and sport below the elite level may, in a way, regret the fact that they will have fewer resources available to them from the lottery after 2009. But it is no use whinging; you cannot spend the same money twice, so some things will have to be forgone from 2009, but other good things will happen.
	Like other noble Lords, I welcome the commitment announced by James Purnell just before he left the department that there would be no further transfer from the lottery towards Olympic expenditure, but the big question now is, "How quickly will the money come back to the lottery?". I read in the press this morning that the London Development Agency now thinks that it is possible that the full proceeds of the land sales will not come back to the lottery before 2031. I do not see how anybody can know; surely, it is speculation and fantasy about how much will be realised over what time scale.
	What is or ought to be under our control is the use of the £2 billion set aside as a contingency fund. We must hope that that money does not have to be used. Mention has been made of the rigorous system for monitoring and controlling cash flow that Tessa Jowell has instituted. I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Coe, and the Olympic Delivery Authority are all absolutely determined that the control of expenditure should be tough and proper, so that we do not, in the end, dig—or dig deeply, at any rate—into that £2 billion contingency fund. I worry that the declaration that a fund on that scale is being retained is an invitation to every contractor in Europe to get their hand into that particular till. It might have been wiser to keep a little quieter about it and, perhaps, allocate a sensible sum to the contingency reserve without publicising it. Be that as it may; that was not how things were handled. However, if we are entering an economic downturn, it will be greatly to the benefit of the communities in east London and therefore to the economy of London and to the wider national economy that this scale of public work is being undertaken to prepare the sites and the physical infrastructure for the Olympic Games.
	We must hope that lottery sales continue to flourish. Even if we should find ourselves in an economic downturn, it is not at all impossible that they will continue to flourish and that the magic porridge pot will continue to bubble. It certainly matters very much to the good causes that that should be the case. I welcome also the announcement by James Purnell that the sum of £750 million, which is the target to be raised by the Olympic lotteries, will be capped at that level. Camelot is optimistic about lottery sales and proceeds during the period following the new licence in 2009. It is its job to be optimistic but we must hope that the new games that it may introduce will flourish. It is absurd to seek to pin down Governments on commitments for as far ahead as 2019, but I express the hope that as time goes by Governments will resolve that, following 2019, there will be no further new causes created or a further dilution or spreading more thinly of the proceeds of the lottery.
	The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, invites the Government to explore other funding options. It is extremely important that all the different sources of finance that could be available for the good causes should be disposed more coherently than they tend to be. All the funding engines should be driving in the same direction. We need a better division of labour between the lottery, central government expenditure, local government expenditure and expenditure by the voluntary sector, trusts, and the private sector, so that there is more coherence, less overlap and more cost-effectiveness in the use of the totality of resources available for the good causes.
	The Government should be congratulated on the increase in grant in aid to complement money from the lottery for the arts and heritage. The additional £50 million that the Government, to our surprise and pleasure, were able to find for the arts will be extremely helpful. Of course there is a row going on, but the Arts Council is absolutely right that there should not be for ever the same charmed circle of funding beneficiaries, but I need not stray further into that particular topic. Sport has enjoyed a prodigious decade of increases of grant in aid and public expenditure. Heritage, by contrast, has experienced a decade of rather short commons, but English Heritage has put a brave face on its settlement in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
	The voluntary sector has enjoyed improved tax relief in the past 10 years, but it is worth reflecting whether tax relief may have a larger part to play in our exploration of other funding options. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has just made the case for a gross profits tax. For arts and heritage, I hope the Government will be willing to consider other tax relief options. I have argued over a number of years, and much more importantly the Historic Houses Association has argued, in favour of historic properties maintenance relief. That would recognise the principle of a stitch in time. It is absurd that our funding system at present seems to require that places of worship or great houses dilapidate to a point at which they are in seriously bad condition before there is any prospect of them getting a grant. That cannot be wise. I hope that the Government will be willing to think again about whether lottery funding might in carefully defined circumstances be available to support the cost of maintenance.
	Noble Lords will have noticed that among the many sensible and interesting recommendations that English Heritage has put forward in its Inspired! campaign to find cost-effective ways to support the conservation of places of worship, it has suggested that you can get very good value for money across a diocese if some organisation takes responsibility for regularly clearing out the gutters of all the churches. It may be unglamorous but it would be extremely useful. If we look after routine maintenance, as we know from our experience in our own homes, we avoid having to face enormous bills later. It would be desirable if the Heritage Lottery Fund did not have to find large sums to make up for failures to attend to maintenance over the years. At present, the rules that constrain the lottery drive us in that direction.
	I hope that in these circumstances of comparatively straitened finance for the arts and heritage the Treasury will allow the DCMS once again to put its hand into the Goodison bran tub. There are many very good recommendations there. Of course they cannot all be done at once, but Sir Nicholas Goodison's thoughts on reform of acceptance in lieu and the douceur arrangement could be of very great benefit to museums and galleries and for archives. I declare an interest as chairman of the UK Literary Heritage Working Group.
	We ought to look at the possibility of improving income tax reliefs to match those that are available in other countries, to encourage support for cultural institutions—for donations of works of art and so forth—and relief on gifts in kind. I believe that a number of the trustees of our great cultural institutions—not every one of them of course because these institutions should have a board of trustees which contains a blend of skills—should see themselves, frankly, as fundraisers and that should be the expectation. It has not been sufficiently the case, except perhaps for occasional capital appeals. We need a better public-private partnership for the funding of our cultural institutions.
	In the circumstances that lie ahead of us with the diversion of money from the lottery for the Olympic Games, it becomes all the more important that the lottery distributors achieve the best value for money in grants that they do give. I hope that they will continue—I am sure that they will—to be shrewd and rigorous in looking to maximise the matched funding that they require from potential recipients of lottery grants.
	I know that it is difficult to apply means testing to voluntary organisations or to local authorities. It is going to be more difficult to raise matched funding in a period of economic slowdown. It is always difficult to raise matched funding in areas of deprivation. But the Public Accounts Committee report on the Heritage Lottery Fund goes so far as to suggest that three-quarters of the projects funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund might have gone ahead, not perhaps in their entirety, but on some worthwhile basis, had those projects not received lottery funding. If we are looking for other funding options—I hope this is sufficiently in the spirit of the noble Lord's amendment—correspondingly, we should particularly be looking for value for money.
	Startlingly, the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have suggested that sometimes, the systems of bureaucratic oversight operated by the lottery distributors are excessively rigorous. I think they are found burdensome and to the extent that the distributors are able to lighten up the bureaucratic requirements, they will save money on their own administrative procedures and those they fund will save time, money and energy.
	I am pleased that the DCMS is taking a searching look at the regional overheads of the various organisations for which it has responsibility—the lottery distributors, English Heritage, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Commission, all of them with a presence across the regions and all of them seemingly finding it necessary to have their own brass plates on the door. This is a prize that has eluded DCMS for a considerable number of years, but Margaret Hodge is on the case. She will need the diplomatic skills of Kofi Annan to broker agreement between—I would not say the warring tribes—these organisations that take a great pride in their independence.
	Worthwhile savings could be found within the DCMS overhead which would be for the benefit of culture. The distributors will of course, as they always do, want to choose projects that provide the best investment for the future, that will constitute a kind of seed corn or where there is good gearing. I do not think that in the circumstances ahead of us they should be chasing the art market or subsidising megastars to perform in our theatres or our opera houses on the scale that they have done before. When funds are a little tighter, there may well be a stronger case for the conservation of works of art than for new acquisitions.
	At all events, I believe that investment in skills across the heritage and arts sectors will offer particularly good value for money at this time. At all times, the distributors should look for multiple dividends. Not only is the building refurbished but a new use is found for it, so that more people come into it, more education takes place there, more organisations and communities are inspired to work together and more energy is released. In that way, public value is maximised. It is always right to look for a quid pro quo. If you are going to give money to repair the roof of the Ashmolean, it is right to ask the curators of Renaissance terracottas or blanc de chine to answer the question, "How will this benefit people who live in Cowley as well as people who live in Carfax?". Similarly, if you are going to give money to local authority museums, it is reasonable to insist that the local authority in question should adopt exemplary best practice as set out in the heritage protection review; it should have conservation officers and appropriate planning procedures so that the heritage benefits more largely.
	The Cultural Olympiad will mean that, precisely on account of the Olympics, there will be an invigoration of cultural activity and a great range of new cultural activities. I hope that, as time goes by, the Government will be able to inform us more fully what the Cultural Olympiad events will be. With the Olympics, there will be growth in tourism and an unquantifiable benefit in the effect on morale of having this great event of which we will be so proud. The cities of Glasgow as European Capital of Culture and Manchester as host of the Commonwealth Games were brilliantly and lastingly transformed by those experiences. I hope that Liverpool as European Capital of Culture 2008 will likewise achieve a brilliant renaissance. I look forward to the same happening for London in 2012. I believe that, from a cultural point of view, the Olympics will be an event to be compared with the Festival of Britain in 1951 rather than with, say, the millennium. We cannot foresee or quantify precisely what these benefits will be, but I am certain that our culture and our society will be profoundly invigorated.

The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I have raised more than once in your Lordships' House the problems that the Heritage Lottery Fund has been facing as a result of the Olympics and I shall speak briefly on that issue today. I am grateful for what the Minister said and for the reassurances that no more than the expected £161.2 million will be taken from the lottery. However, will he say how the HLF will fund any shortfall or loss of revenue through reduced sales of non-Olympic lottery games? Will that be a problem for the HLF or will the Government help?
	The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has tabled a useful amendment, but I question one thing that he said. He said that the amount of money taken from the Heritage Lottery Fund would have a potential impact on projects. I can tell him that it has already had a definite impact on projects. There is no question but that in Scotland potentially very good projects have been withdrawn as a result of the money that has been allocated to the Olympics and the consequent reduction in the budget. Of course the Olympics must be a success. Now that we have them, it is the duty of us all to make certain that they are a success. However, they must be a success throughout the country, not just a success for east London. I fear that, at the end of the day, London will be the only place to benefit from the Olympics.
	My noble friend Lord Glentoran said that the lottery is a slush fund for the Government. That is a pretty good statement of the use of the lottery. We are right to question how lottery moneys are allocated. I certainly would like to have a good debate about how the Heritage Lottery Fund works because I agree with some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, made about the heritage lottery and how the funds could be allocated. He said that a large percentage of heritage fund projects would go ahead in some form without a government grant. How many of those might have involved local authorities rather than private individuals and small charities, which could actually benefit hugely from a better allocation of the Heritage Lottery Fund?
	The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, also mentioned the contingency fund. We see in the Evening Standardtoday that the aquatics centre bill has trebled to £210 million. What happens when the contingency fund is exceeded? What agreement do the Government have with the parties, the mayor and the Heritage Lottery Fund? Is the memorandum that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, mentioned clear on this point? If raw material costs continue to shoot up and we have this downturn in the economy and the contingency fund is exceeded, who is going to pick up that bill?
	My last point is to chide the Minister. On 17 January I posed to him two questions which he studiously ignored when he came to sum up. I will pose them again in the hope that this time he does not studiously ignore them:
	"First, will any repayment to the lottery come back with interest attached?".
	You are taking a large chunk of money away from the lottery. If all you do is return that same amount, given inflation it will be a decrease in money, so I hope that there will be interest attached. My other question was:
	"Secondly, would the Government consider allowing the National Lottery Fund to have an overdraft account guaranteed by the Government",—[Official Report, 17/1/08; col. 1450.]
	up to the total amount the Government want? Instead of having to rely on land sales at some date in the future—the data seem unclear as to when that money is going to be repaid to the Heritage Lottery Fund—and in view of the wording of the Motion tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, this could be one way that the Government could mitigate some of the very serious effect that has been felt throughout the country by the reduction to the Heritage Lottery Fund, by letting this contribution be handled in a different way.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for the way in which he introduced his amendment. I appreciated the generosity of his tribute to the outgoing Secretary of State from the DCMS, who succeeded in producing resources from the Treasury which safeguard a great deal of expenditure in areas in need of resources given the changes in the lottery. As he indicated, the new Secretary of State was the Chief Secretary who helped to furnish this arrangement, so that is the best possible augury I can offer. The House has expressed its anxieties about the good causes. I hope to be able to allay those in a few moments. Whether I am able to be quite so precise in detail as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, enjoins me to be, I am not sure, but I will certainly do my very best to answer his questions.
	As I mentioned in my opening statement, we intend to follow what the amendment recommends as the cap on expenditure. It will be at £750 million. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked about the speed with which the money was being raised. He indicated a third by Beijing and two-thirds afterwards. We are hoping broadly to follow that pattern, and we have some assistance. He will recognise the advantages that the National Lottery Commission has identified in its new licence, which should yield an extra £60 million to £100 million for good causes and will help in this situation. Therefore, the impact of the £700 million transfer will potentially be reduced by the advantages of growth in that area. As I indicated in my opening statement, the transfer of the money will, and can, take place on a regular basis. However, I assure noble Lords that the resources will be transferred only as they are needed.
	As my noble friend Lord Howarth said, would that we had been more secretive about the contingency funds, because they leave themselves open to exploitation. The only plea that I have ever heard in this House, and probably in the other place, has been for some restraint about publicity. The demand that everyone concerned with the Games always has to face, particularly with regard to funding, is for openness and transparency. That is why we are having this debate today, and of course the Government believe that they must be transparent. As my noble friend indicated, there is that cost involved in the contingency fund, but I am afraid that that is the price we pay for the way in which we conduct business. I emphasise to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that of course we will be as open as possible.
	The noble Lord asked me specifically whether I can give a date for the review of the gross profits tax. I cannot do that but I hope he will accept in the best possible faith that the Government have indicated that the issue is to be looked at again with a serious review of the case. That follows considerable reluctance on the part of the Treasury in previous years to consider the matter. I hope he will take that in the spirit in which it is intended. It is a clear indication that this may be a fruitful area in which assistance can be given to the project. Of course, the Treasury would not be the institution that it is if it did not subject such potential changes and revenue loss to close scrutiny, and it will do so.
	The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also commented on the grey area of pseudo-lottery games. We want to see what we can do about that but it is not an easy issue to tackle. We all share his objective, because this is a form of riding on the back of a major institution and is very close to cheating so far as the public are concerned, although that is probably the wrong expression. We all know that the advantages of the lottery and its power to appeal to people are being used by those who have no intention at all of fulfilling the broad objectives of the lottery, with the gains to good causes. That is an intensely unfair position to adopt. It is not easy for us to tackle it in legislation but we would certainly want to control it if we could.
	The Memorandum of Understanding with the mayor is not legally binding. It is not a contract but an agreement between two highly significant public bodies, which are expected to honour the undertakings that they accept—particularly this one. No Memorandum of Understanding has reached the prominence that this one has and it will be subject to scrutiny year after year. Long after the Games are over, it will still form the basis of judgment with regard to land sales, which is a very difficult area. There is therefore no question but that the Memorandum of Understanding means a great deal to the parties who subscribe to it.
	The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, emphasised transparency. He is right to do so, and I am glad that he appreciates the arrangements which the Minister for the Olympic Games is making to ensure that the fullest possible information is given to all sides of the House on the issues.
	On publicity, we are all still holding our breath to see the extent to which we succeed in selling the Olympic message to the nation, but let me say that we do not have to hold our breath for very long. The biggest single impulse towards the nation's consciousness of the Olympic Games will take place the moment Beijing becomes a reality. Then, of course, the Olympic movement will mean an enormous amount to the people of this country. With regard to audience participation, when you see the television-viewing figures for the Olympic Games in all advanced countries, particularly among the sports-loving British, we do not have the slightest doubt that there could be no greater opportunity to increase awareness. Moreover, as noble Lords will recognise, the Olympic Games closes with Beijing handing over the responsibility to London. I do not have the slightest doubt that that is when this country will very obviously engage fully with the opportunities that the Olympics will provide.
	I do not, however, underestimate the solid work that has been done right across the country. There has been enormous preparation for what the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, and other noble Lords from other sides of the House have rightly emphasised are London Olympics for the nation's good, and the nation as a whole needs to benefit from them. Enormous groundwork has been done, but it will take time. It will be once the Beijing Olympics are over that the nation will really engage with the London Olympics. As I said in my opening contribution, the fact that London is hosting the Games enjoys the approval of more than three-quarters of the population at this stage. We will do a lot better than that once the torch has been handed to us.
	My noble friend Lord Howarth took the opportunity to extend the debate to the causes which he holds dear. I hope he will recognise that my job this evening is to get this order through and to try to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to withdraw his amendment. I therefore cannot enter into debate with my noble friend on all the interests that he particularly has at heart, but I entirely accept his basic premise that if we are to present the Olympics as a cultural event for the nation, we had better take good care to enhance the cultural legacy that we already have for the benefit of the nation. I particularly appreciated his concept of the investment in skills in the preservation of our heritage. That is an important dimension.
	The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, challenged me directly. Let me say that the contingency fund is generous and significant, as he will recognise, although we do not want to use it at all—only at the absolute margins, if we can manage. If we did not have a proper contingency fund, we would be faced with anxiety about the Games and constant crisis every time the resources ran short. That is sound and good provision, but of course the objective of all those concerned with the Games is to deliver them without that contingency fund being utilised.
	On the resources, the noble Earl knows a great deal more about land sales than I do. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said that he cannot guess London land values too accurately. I certainly cannot, but I make this obvious point; it will take considerable time before the land sales are realised after the Games. We are not talking about an immediate realisation of resources.
	It is not a question of interest being paid back to the lottery, as the lottery has not given a loan. Resources have been diverted from the lottery to this great project, and in doing so we are fulfilling one absolutely prime reason for conceiving the lottery; that it is there to fund great national occasions. That is part of its remit, and what is greater than the Olympics? They were unforeseen and unpremeditated, until we succeeded with the bid. When the big demands on resources come in, the lottery is exactly the vehicle for dealing with them.
	However, as I have indicated, the percentage of resources devoted to the Olympics has increased more from the Government side than from the lottery side. Therefore, it is not a question of interest being paid on a loan but of an agreement whereby, as land sales take place, a proper percentage of those resources goes to the lottery in order to repay the money that has been taken. Also, if the land sales greatly exceed the figure involved, the lottery will get more back than what has been transferred from it. However, that is bound to be conjecture; I am in no position to form a prospectus on how those issues should occur. I may not have answered the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, with quite as much precision as he would have liked, but I hope that that will do for now.
	I want to emphasise that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has been as assiduous as ever in his concern regarding the Olympic Games and their consequences for the broader issues of lottery good causes. I hope that I have reassured him that the Government have thought carefully about these issues; we are concerned to minimise the impact upon good causes, and to indemnify them and advance their interests after the Games are over. At the same time, we will be directing all of our energies to ensuring that the Olympic Games to be held in London in 2012 will be the greatest ever.

Lord Clement-Jones: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his careful wind-up speech, and I can reassure him that he has done the job he set out to do. This was not an order that we should have looked at lightly or passed quickly; our serious debate today has demonstrated many different aspects of this, and the concerns that noble Lords have about it.
	Some very interesting points have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, had some extremely interesting ideas; I hope that the new Secretary of State will explore some of them. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, pointed out a fundamental truth—one that I know the noble Lord, Lord Coe, is extremely well apprised of, as are other members of LOCOG, the ODA and so on; that is, that these Games must be seen as being for the whole nation, not simply for London. Otherwise, how can we persuade good causes in the nations and regions, which may be losing out in the short term, that they should forgo some of their income for the Games? How can we persuade them of the benefits?
	The Minister, in winding up, made further points on the key parts of the package, so to speak. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches believe it important to go forward with it. He has reiterated the £750 million cap and talked about the speed of raising that amount. He has also talked about the GPT review, and it is highly significant that the Treasury has made that shift in its thinking. Even though the Minister cannot give assurances about that review, I very much hope that it will be quick and will result in early action. Further, even though the aspect of the grey lotteries is key and a difficult one to grapple with, it is important that the National Lottery legislation order is brought up to date. Quite frankly, commercial lotteries should not be able to trade off the back of all the goodwill that has been established by the National Lottery over the years.
	We on these Benches will not push the amendment to a vote. When I tabled it some months ago, it was at a time when we were instituting discussions with the former Secretary of State about the way forward and how we could mitigate the effect of this order. I am glad to say that we have a package which, if it comes together, will go a long way towards mitigating its effect. That is extremely welcome. I thank the Minister and his colleagues for what they have done and I hope that we are now in a position to make sure not only that we have a highly successful Games that are properly funded, but also that in the process we will not find that our good causes are disadvantaged. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	On Question, Motion agreed to.

Climate Change Bill [HL]

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House in Committee accordingly.
	[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (Lord Brabazon of Tara) in the Chair.]
	Clause 51 [Waste reduction schemes]:
	On Question, Whether Clause 51 shall stand part of the Bill?

Lord Greaves: At long last we have arrived at Part 5, of which Schedule 5 makes up a great deal. Here we move from grave, major global problems and national targets to the back streets of England. I wish I could say that I am bringing a backstreet mob with me to deal with all this, but unfortunately it is just me. However, these are important issues and they must be properly debated.
	I should apologise for the fact that I could not take part in the Second Reading debate, but I have read it in detail and with great interest. There was not a great deal of discussion of Part 5, which sets out the waste minimisation provisions, in particular the proposals to allow local authorities to charge for removing refuse under certain circumstances. The reason I have tabled a clause stand part debate is to allow a short general debate on these provisions before we get down to the detail, which I think will be helpful.
	The Liberal Democrat view, with greater or lesser enthusiasm, is that if councils wish to try out these provisions, by and large we should let them do so. The Local Government Association is rather more enthusiastic than I about these proposals because it thinks that lots of councils will wish to be, in the words of its spokesman, "innovative and enterprising". I wonder how many will be prepared to go ahead with the pilots; we will find out. My personal view is a sceptical one. I am not at all sure that this is going to be one of the major ways, or even an important minor one, in which this country tackles climate change, but I do believe that the House of Lords should scrutinise the legislation closely at this stage because it may be the only chance this part gets for detailed consideration. We have no control over what happens in the House of Commons, but quite often it does not get to the end of Bills, and it is obvious that Members of the other place will spend a lot of time on the major issues such as targets, greenhouse gas emissions reduction and so on. So this may be the only real chance the Bill gets for detailed scrutiny. If, in the Government's view, the pilots are successful so that they come forward with what they called the roll-outs across the country, that will be done by secondary legislation. Although we will be able to discuss it, clearly we will not be able to go through it in the detail we can today. We have got a job to do in the time left to us on this Bill.
	This part of the Bill seeks to set up pilot schemes which will enable local authorities, in certain circumstances, to either charge or give rebates to householders for the disposal of their waste, and it suggests four kinds of pilots. We had a useful letter from the Minister on this matter, setting out in some detail the way the Government see this scheme going forward. The Defra website is a mine of extremely useful information on this—there is a great deal of information out there—but, on the other hand, the details and how it is going to work are not very clear.
	There are four main schemes set out by the Government. First, there is a bin-volume based scheme, which some people call big bins and little bins. Secondly, there is a weight-based scheme, in which a chip placed in the wheelie-bin is able to measure the amount of refuse put out by each householder. This is a system which has led to a certain amount of deliberation in the national media and which some people call chip and bin. Thirdly, there is a frequency-based scheme where there might be a basic collection every fortnight. If you want a collection every week you can have it—or you can ring up and ask for a special collection—but you will pay extra for it. Fourthly, there is a sack-based scheme in which householders pay for sacks to set out their waste and everyone on the scheme perhaps receives a flat-rate rebate. Therefore there is a redistribution from people who put out more sacks to people who put out fewer sacks. It is what some people call "a pound a sack" scheme. It might be a pound, it might not; we will perhaps find out what kind of level the Government have in mind. In Maastricht, one of the places they highlight where this has worked, each sack costs a euro—and the way things are going a euro is not far off a pound; it is now worth about 75p.
	Perhaps I may ask some general questions at this stage. First, is the principle right? Is it right to try to reduce the amount of waste produced—which everyone accepts has to be done—at the point of collection? Would it not be more cost effective and less administratively and politically difficult to take action in other ways—for example, by reducing the amount of packing at source; by going over to use-once bags rather than throwaway bags; by collecting kitchen waste, which is perhaps the main component of domestic waste so far as concerns global warming and greenhouse gases; and by tackling commercial and industrial waste? There are a number of amendments from both the Conservatives and ourselves on some of these issues later on, but the basic question is whether the principle of targeting people at the household is right. There is a major question mark over this.
	Secondly, which schemes in other countries do the Government regard as the models to be copied or piloted here? The documentation the Government have produced lists a number of these but the information provided is sketchy.
	Thirdly, will the Government tell us which councils they are talking to that might want to bring this in? So far they have refused to say. The Local Government Association has refused to tell me which councils it thinks are interested, but if we are going to judge whether these pilots are successful, it is very important that we have some idea of the kinds of areas they might cover.
	Fourthly, the Government say that up to £18 per household cost savings might be made from a charging system, but does that come from the charging or from the related measures to recycle more associated with it? How reliable is that figure? As to the national saving of £94 million per year that the Government say might be made, what level of national take-up does that figure suggest will take place—100 per cent, 50 per cent, or rather less? Some people will say that this is about reducing the amount of stuff we throw away, that it is about climate change and the fact that the earth is heating up, and so is worth doing. But there is no point in going over to schemes that will not work and are not seen to be fair, because that will result in a public reaction that does harm to the whole campaign.
	The other questions are: is the reduction in greenhouse gases, which this might result in, really going to be significant in terms of the overall targets? Will it be cost effective? Are there not better ways of doing it that will produce better value in terms of the investment put in?
	I would be much happier with this measure if it were part of a comprehensive Bill setting out all kinds of ways in which local authorities and other public bodies could tackle the related problems of reducing the amount of waste, which is necessary regardless of climate change, and reducing the amount of emissions from stuff that goes to landfill or in other ways. If this were just one of a whole series of measures, with regard particularly to local authorities but also to other public bodies at regional, local and national level, we would regard it as being more substantial. It seems odd that this is one little measure tacked on to a major climate change Bill that is really quite different from the rest of the Bill. That, I suppose, is why I am moving these amendments on behalf of our party.
	I put this forward with a reasonably constructive but sceptical point of view, and look forward to the Minister's reply to it.

Earl Cathcart: The Climate Change Bill is framework legislation, but here in Part 5 a very specific provision is bolted on to the Bill. To me it looks rather strange and out of place in the Bill, but there it is—no doubt, to stay. However, does it hit the spot? Five local authorities are to pilot waste-reduction schemes to encourage households to minimise and recycle their waste. The aspiration is to have zero waste from households going to landfill, an admirable goal.
	Here I should probably declare an interest: I have been a councillor on Breckland District Council in Norfolk for the past 10 years. Breckland council currently collects over 42 per cent of waste for recycling, while I believe the national average is somewhere in the region of the mid-20s. Britain has an appalling record on waste management. Clauses 51 to 54 look only at a very narrow element of waste—householders minimising and recycling their waste—with carrot-and-stick incentives. However, it does not seem to tackle the issue of reducing the production of waste and packaging in the first place—waste minimisation—although there are signs that some retailers are committed to reducing packaging.
	Why deal only with households? Why not all waste collected by local authorities from manufacturers, retailers, importers, service providers, state-related enterprises, offices, shops, schools and so on? Household waste represents only about 10 per cent of the UK's waste overall. We are looking at only a fraction of the problem. Is that the intention?
	At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said that 6 million tonnes of wood that could be used for energy go to landfill every year. He went on to say that this is an appalling waste. Will Part 5 of the Bill deal with that? If not, why not?
	Earlier I talked about waste collected for recycling. It is all very well collecting all that waste, but does it get recycled in an environmentally friendly way? I would argue, no. The vast majority of our waste collected for recycling is exported. Twenty per cent goes to China, which hardly fits into the overall aim of the Bill. We do not have the mechanisms or the markets for recycling in this country.
	The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh said at Second Reading:
	"What cannot be recycled should be gasified ... to produce liquid fuels or electric power".
	However, there is more than one solution to the problem. Perhaps what cannot be turned into fuel or power should be incinerated. The noble Lord went on to say:
	"Incineration normally involves the production of environmentally unfriendly emanations which can be offensive to the local community".—[Official Report, 27/11/07; col. 1136-7.]
	At huge risk to myself, I beg to differ. The modern incinerators of today have three or four scrubbers up the chimney, cleaning and purifying the emanations so that the final emissions are inoffensive and clean, making the danger insignificant by EU standards.
	We need to look at all aspects and solutions for waste management from all sources and not just target householders, who are only 10 per cent of the problem. In any case, research shows that nearly two-thirds of householders are committed recyclers.
	Even if the pilots proposed in the Bill are successful and are rolled out nationally, with equal success, and if waste collected for recycling reaches 50 per cent, which is double the figure for today, and we find UK solutions to recycle environmentally, what will we have achieved? We will have found solutions for a mere 5 per cent of the UK's waste. What about the remaining 95 per cent? We will have found nothing or, at best, very little.
	These provisions tinker with the UK's waste. We need to be bold, to grasp the nettle; we must find solutions for all UK waste. We need to minimise it in the first place, collect it efficiently and then recycle or dispose of it in the most environmentally beneficial manner. We must look at all the options and solutions. Only then might we find a solution for the Minister's 6 million tonnes of wood currently sent to landfill. Let us not miss an opportunity. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Lord Crickhowell: Like my noble friend Lord Cathcart and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, I am not impressed by this rather odd little add-on to the Bill. My noble friend covered effectively the serious shortcomings in the legislation. It is odd that we are dealing with the matter in this way. One cannot be too hostile to pilot schemes of this kind, but one is entitled to ask why we have not been given a clearer picture of the way in which the Government intend to tackle the whole problem of waste.
	It is clear that it is of great significance as far as the Bill is concerned, because, as my noble friend indicated, waste is a substantial contributor to CO2 emissions. When we come to meet the targets and prepare the budgets and when the Secretary of State has to produce his great plans so that he can meet those targets, waste will have to be covered. It is therefore odd that it is not in the Bill. I suppose that the Minister will say, "Well, it's such a major set of policy matters that we will need to come back with separate legislation, and it will be part of a big Bill which at some time in the future we'll produce". It will be interesting if he says that, and we will want an indication of just when that legislation will come forward and its likely nature.
	As for the pilot schemes, we are talking about giving incentives to ratepayers to dispose of their waste in a particular way. However, I suspect that we really should be talking about incentives for industry, as my noble friend said, and for all others who produce waste, to get rid of it in the right way, as well as incentives for local authorities to handle it in the most efficient way.
	One of the difficulties that we face is the fact that waste legislation, notably the landfill directive, was devised before climate change became a great issue. Local authorities manage waste mainly on a weight basis. I am on the Science and Technology Committee, and we are undertaking an inquiry into waste. I do not propose to anticipate the findings of that committee as we are at an early stage in the collection of evidence, but we have already had powerful evidence from industry about what is going wrong and heard its concerns about the consequences. It points to the fact that, apart from anything else, there are about 400 different local authorities all pursuing different policies. That makes it difficult for industry to deal effectively and comprehensively with waste. If one local authority handles waste in one way and its next-door neighbour in another, it is difficult for industry, particularly the recycling industry, to work effectively. That is one problem. The Local Government Association briefing states:
	"Local authorities know their local areas and are the best people to decide how to make the pilots work for the people they serve".
	That may be so, but do they know how to deal with the needs of industry?
	My noble friend referred to the export of recyclable waste to other parts of the world, including China. This week, we were told by representatives of the IT industry that there was an acute shortage of recyclable plastic in this country for manufacture, including an acute shortage in the supply of plastic bottles. We were told that one of the reasons for that was the international recycling trade and the fact that the financial incentives encouraged disposal by export, probably to countries which recycled the material in a way that made a negative rather than positive contribution to climate change. We learnt that at present there are no adequate incentives to the recycling industry in this country to provide manufacturing industry with what it wants.
	We heard particularly important evidence from the aluminium industry. Aluminium is an amazing product: 75 per cent of all aluminium ever produced is still in use today. It is not only recyclable but can be recycled to infinity. You can go on recycling it again and again, which you cannot do with plastics or paper because the nature of the product changes in such a way that you do not get an adequate end-product. However, you can do that with aluminium. A difficulty that arises because local authority schemes are based on weight is that aluminium, which is a relatively light product, is simply not getting through the right recycling system. It is disposed of along with kitchen waste. We all know what we do with those foil containers in which we cook our suppers—particularly when our wives are away—having acquired them from the supermarket. There is no incentive to deliver them for recycling, and they go into the general waste collection. That is what happens to them. As a result, the industry is simply not getting the amount of material recycled that it would like to see.
	There are other problems. For example, you can recycle cans very easily, but there is a rather unfortunate tendency, particularly among the younger generation, to chuck them away and expect others to pick them up rather than to put them in places where they can be collected easily and recycled. We need incentives for them to do that. We were told that in spite of the industry's efforts, over 90,000 tonnes of aluminium packaging in the UK, worth around £80 million, is still going to landfill. They say that that is largely because the packaging waste regulations and the landfill directive do not encourage local authorities to collect lightweight non-biodegradable packaging like aluminium.
	We were told that for local authorities the collection of lightweight aluminium packaging is not a priority because their targets are weight based with strong incentives to divert biodegradable waste. Aluminium is the only packaging material that has been almost totally dependent on recovering material from the domestic waste stream to achieve its targets.
	The glass industry gave us even greater cause for concern. Glass is a material that can be recycled again and again, but even those local authorities—this may seem absurd, but apparently it happens—that solemnly collect different coloured glass bottles in different containers because of the financial arrangements under which they work and the materials recycling facilities operate often commingle the collections again and throw them all in together. As a consequence glass reprocessors are increasingly receiving material of such poor quality that the only market for it is an aggregate for use in road building. The trouble is that the CO2 saving for aggregate use is negative, while if it can be used for recycling bottles and manufacturing it is substantially positive.
	In addition, material has been provided and the case has been made to bear out the fact that there is a substantial energy saving for every tonne of glass waste used in new manufacture because recycled glass melts at a lower temperature than virgin raw materials. If we are recycling glass we save a substantial amount in quarry. There are great savings to be made if we can get it right, but because so much of our legislation was devised before the advent of the climate change agenda that is not happening and it is having a serious impact on our glass industry, which is ceasing to be competitive —which should concern us—because our continental rivals are doing the job of recycling much better than we are in this country.
	If an industry is unable to meet its targets under the climate change agreements it loses an 80 per cent discount. That is worth £12 million per annum to the industry. The combination of the loss of that discount with the additional energy costs and the greater liability under the Emissions Trading Scheme is likely to see the UK glass industry becoming severely uncompetitive with the rest of the EU. Countries such as Holland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland already benefit from lower costs because their recycling and remelt performances are better than ours and they do not get penalised through having to pay a climate change levy.
	Surely that should be a concern for the Government. They have been told all that: strong representations have been made. I have been reading from a letter to Ministers. Why is something not being done as a matter of urgency? Why are we having a trivial scheme pilot for five local authorities to see whether they can get householders to create a better split up of their household rubbish? I do not understand, when there are substantial issues to be addressed.
	I say to the Government, if we are going to have provisions to deal with waste in the Bill let us have serious provisions that are going to make a difference, or specific information and undertakings about when they are going to come forward with effective legislation to change what is clearly a highly unsatisfactory situation.

Lord Rooker: As we enter the last laps of Committee, I hope that your Lordships will be pleased that we managed to get the announcement of the chair designate to the climate change committee before the end of Committee stage. I hope that that will be a reassurance for Report stage. Part of the Bill has been completely rubbished and dismissed as trivial or insignificant. All I can say to noble Lords is that they should thank their lucky stars that it is in the Bill anyway. That is the reality. Looking for a parliamentary vehicle and at the overall policy objectives, it was that or nothing, and the pilots are important, as I will explain. We do not consider this a trivial part of the Bill and I will not have the answers to the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, in the sense of timing of other processes, because they will flow from the pilots, which are only about household waste.
	There are plenty of other areas where we are working on minimising waste in industry. However, some interesting points have been raised and questions asked and I will do my best to answer them. I hope that it will set the scene. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, I will deal with some of the details in the amendments, although I hope that I will have to deal with each of the points only once if I can satisfactorily answer your Lordships.
	Clause 51 introduces Schedule 5, which is a different exercise to the rest of the Bill. It produces a legislative framework for any waste collection authority to set up a waste reduction scheme. Waste reduction schemes may have an important role to play in encouraging people to throw away less and recycle more. We need to send less waste to landfill. At the moment, 3 per cent of all UK greenhouse gas emissions come from the methane from biodegradable waste in landfill. We have made good progress in recent years. I have answered Questions from this Dispatch Box in the past couple of years. Household waste recycling has quadrupled in the past 10 years. It is just over 30 per cent in 2006-07. But as has been said, we lag considerably behind much of the rest of Europe and therefore we need to do much better.
	Householders have a vital part to play. As has been said, municipal waste accounts for over a quarter of the waste sent to landfill in England; and household waste forms a large part of that. The research shows that waste reduction schemes could help. For instance—I will probably give other examples as we come through the amendments—a scheme in Sweden saw residual waste fall by 45 per cent in the first year of the scheme and waste separated for recycling and composting rose by 49 per cent.
	In Seattle, where householders pay according to the size of their bin, recycling tonnages have increased by 60 per cent and participation in recycling has increased to 80 per cent. What is said is trivial but we are proposing modest powers in this legislation to enable up to five local authorities to pilot waste reduction schemes. The factual briefing note that I sent to noble Lords recently included information about how these schemes could work in practice. In outline, under the proposed powers, householders who throw away the least will receive a rebate from the authority.
	In some schemes, householders who throw away the most could pay more. However, all the money raised that way will have to be paid back to residents. That revenue-neutrality condition offers an important protection for local residents. It means that, overall, they do not pay any more to the local authority. The requirement on authorities to keep a separate account of charges and rebates under the scheme will allow residents to assure themselves and the people who watch local authorities that the revenue-neutrality requirement is being met.
	The pilot authorities will be able to integrate the rebates and any charges within their local council tax system. The Government are keen to ensure that the necessary protections for people and the environment are in place, so the pilot schemes will need to take account of potentially disadvantaged groups—maybe large families, people living in flats, and so on—and provide a good kerb-side recycling service and have in place a fly-tipping prevention strategy. Those are all points that we shall come to in detail later.
	These requirements will ensure that important protections are in place both for society and the environment. My plea to noble Lords is that we have to be able to give local authorities as much flexibility as they need, once we have set the basic framework. They are the professionals with enormous expertise—and, of course, with lots of experience of co-operating with industry as well. But we need them to look at cost efficiency and to reflect local needs and circumstances. The five areas will not all be the same, which is the whole point of the exercise.
	That is why I say in advance that I will have to resist amendments that seek to impose unnecessary restrictions on authorities, including additional requirements around fly-tipping prevention, which they have to deal with anyway; packaged and kitchen waste; limits on the way in which local authorities can administer charges; and requirements that schemes cover the whole area, not part of it. We have to give local government some degree of flexibility. Similarly, we want to ensure that as central government, we have sufficient flexibility to amend parts of the proposed legislation in the light of what we learn from the pilots, which, after all, is what they are.
	We have been careful to ensure that Parliament plays a full role in any such changes. These are new powers for England and we think that piloting is the sensible approach. Up to five pilots will allow us to look in depth at the impacts of a variety of schemes in different areas. In principle, piloting is a good idea. It was one of the things that shadow Ministers were warned about, on the approach to the 1997 election, by retired civil servants, business folk and academics when we were thinking about what we would do in government. They warned us that where there are new schemes, whatever they are, and we can pilot them, we should attempt to do so. Past evidence is that that is a much more successful way of legislating and bringing about change than a one-size-fits-all, do-it-overnight for the whole country approach. We have had too many disasters not to learn the lessons.
	It is up to local authorities to bring forward their own proposals on how the schemes will work, including how long they will last, for example. We need to be responsive to the bids, rather than attempting to prejudge what we want them to look like. Of course, we will involve Parliament in the decision-making process.
	The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked some specific questions, which I shall do my best to answer. He asked whether the principle was right and why we should target householders at the point of collection. Would it be more cost-effective and less administratively and politically difficult to take action in other ways, such as with regard to kitchen waste, use-once bags, and commercial and trade waste? The Government are clear that all sectors need to take action to reduce and recycle their waste. However, householders have an important part to play. As I said, 27 per cent of waste is sent to landfill.
	This measure complements action elsewhere; it does not replace it. Nor is it forcing authorities to come forward as pilots. It is completely up to them to decide if it makes administrative and financial sense. Evidence shows that waste reduction schemes can make savings for authorities. The Government have already taken action on packaging. EU packaging waste targets to be achieved by 2008 have raised the recycling rate in the UK for packaging waste from 27 per cent in 1997 to 56 per cent in 2006. Meanwhile, industrial and commercial waste to landfill has fallen from 50 per cent to 44 per cent over a four-year period from 1998-99 to 2002-03.
	The waste strategy for food waste from kitchens to 2007 already encourages local authorities to offer separate collections, and the waste resource and action programme—WRAP—is currently trialling separate collections with 17 local authorities to determine the feasibility of a wider rollout. WRAP and its partners are also running a campaign called Love Food, Hate Waste, whose aim overall is to reduce consumer food waste by 100,000 tonnes by March 2008. New targets are currently being drawn up to extend it.
	The noble Lord also asked about schemes in other countries and whether we regarded them as models to be copied. Research was carried out for Defra last year, which provided a comprehensive review of the literature on waste charging, and modelled the possible impacts of similar schemes in England. It is published on Defra's website with a peer review report. I circulated a factual briefing to noble Lords last week, containing examples of how different types of schemes operate overseas, including weight-based, bin-volume and sack-based schemes. We would like to enable local authorities in England to trial these different methods as well, but waste in England is not necessarily collected in the same way as it is in other countries, which have a different demography and types of housing.
	Therefore, it is not right to say that one system abroad would be better for England—or for the pilots—than another. We will encourage authorities to introduce their own versions, similar to or different from those abroad, but which are well thought out. Obviously they can learn from practices. They can certainly learn from the PR and explanations involved in putting across such schemes to citizens, and not to be frightened by the ill informed, ignorant journalism on this issue that we sometimes get from certain sections of the tabloid press. That is important because these schemes work. We are not reinventing the wheel; it is not as though this does not happen successfully elsewhere, even within the European Union. That is why the pilots are so important; we want to test the issues.
	The noble Lord also asked which councils we are talking to. We are not talking at the moment. We have had discussions with local authorities, but there is no secret list in a drawer in Whitehall of councils that have been lined up to trial these schemes. That is the honest truth. We have not had authorities declaring themselves as potential candidates but we have had several informal conversations with authorities and other stakeholders who want further information.
	We are at a very early stage in the legislation. The Bill has come to this House first. It can change as it goes through the parliamentary process but we would not expect to receive formal applications until Parliament has concluded its consideration. Also, we cannot be sure that the authorities asking for information now will be the ones applying formally for the pilot. It is therefore not appropriate to give names of local authorities with which we have had informal discussions. We will develop a more formal process of application, so will look again at that issue for sure. In terms of judging the pilots, we will develop and publish a set of criteria to inform our decisions on which authorities should run them, which is likely to be based on how well the proposal delivers positive environmental and economic results, alongside protection for householders and the environment. That protection is crucial, as is revenue neutrality, so that householders do not feel that they are paying twice for the service.
	I have answered some of the points asked by the noble Earl. It is about household waste. The figures I used were given to me on one of my visits by Harper Adams college, which is looking at disposal sites and energy derived from wood waste. There is an issue of second-hand wood waste because it has resins, paints and glues, and comes under the waste directive governed by the Environment Agency on new use; the issue is not as easy as one thinks. But the idea of putting 6 million tonnes of wood into landfill is preposterous when we think of the energy that we can get from that in ways that are technically known.
	In the waste hierarchy, waste minimisation and recycling are higher than energy from waste. Not to create it in the first place is certainly higher in the Bill. In this respect, we focus on waste minimisation and recycling at the top of the hierarchy. As to the point that the noble Lord made about 20 per cent of the waste going to China, recycling is good for the environment wherever it takes place, as long as it is recycled and undertaken in an environmentally sound manner.
	I am well aware, from television, films and briefings, that that has not always been the case. It is illegal to export waste from this country for dumping, but all exports for recycling are subject to EC and UK controls in order to protect human health and the environment. People are sent out as inspectors to areas where the waste goes to recycling, not as a jolly, but to see that the environment is being protected as well as human health and that we are not causing problems.
	That has added advantages. Waste may go to economies that can use this waste—I know that is not a good word—for recycling on a more massive scale than we can do economically. That is not easy in a small country, where economies of scale apply. Where recycling can be done in growing economies such as China and India, they can reduce their reliance on natural resources in the first place, on a much greater scale than we could here. That would be of much greater benefit to the environment, so there is a win-win situation there—as long as the recycling is carried out in an environmentally friendly fashion.
	I have said that this is only a principled debate on Clause 51, as the noble Lord said. I apologise that it is not the full-blown exercise that was originally forecast, but I do not think it is trivial. This is relevant to the Bill. There is a connection between what we are trying to do on climate change and waste reduction, minimisation and recycling. This is a contribution that. If this is done by piloting, it is much more likely to win public acceptance in the medium and long term, than if it were done overnight through a system imposed by Whitehall.

Baroness Byford: My Lords, before the noble Lord responds, can I ask the Minister a couple of things? I am very pleased with his response to this short debate and agree that we need flexibility. The pilot areas are referred to as "areas". Could an area be the whole of a county, or are just one or two areas linked up? Will one specific local authority do the piloting? In some cases, a greater scale would bring greater rewards than having a smaller pilot.
	My second question is about the exporting of our waste to be recycled. In principle I do not have any problem with that, but is there an equivalent carbon footprint to be taken into account when that sort of waste is moved? Clearly, if we are creating more pollution as a result of it, that should raise a question mark.
	My final point is more personal to me. Within rural areas, collection of waste of any sort—as the Minister knows so well—costs more. Therefore, I do hope that one of the areas chosen for the pilots would include a rural area.

Lord Rooker: I thought that I had covered the first point of the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, but probably not adequately. It will be up to the five local authorities to come forward with proposed pilots for areas in their boundaries. It may or may not be the whole local authority area. It will be entirely up to the local authority to decide whether it wants to participate in a pilot and to choose the part of its area that it is responsible for; that could be less than its full boundaries—it is entirely up to it—and we will assess the benefits of that. To that extent the answer is going to be left to local authorities. It would make sense for the pilot schemes to have a range, from the census point of view—local authorities may talk to each other and the Local Government Association will play a big role in this—so that the pilots are meaningful. They are a forerunner of national policy so it does not make sense to have them all run in the same kind of area. There will be flexibility.
	That makes my point on the third question about the rural aspect of the issue. There are clearly massive differences between what would happen in the City of Westminster and in a rural area. The collection is different, disposal is different, the means of separating the household waste is different and the kind of schemes that one would put together are different, but that is up to the local authority and we do not want to prejudge that.
	The noble Baroness's point about transport is interesting. That would be covered when we get round to looking at the shipping aspect of the carbon footprint in offsetting the net benefits of taking the goods out of the country to be recycled; we hope that that will not be a matter for this Bill.

Lord Dearing: In welcoming the pilots, I have one question for the Minister—in one sentence. Will he satisfy himself that the administrative costs of the pilots are taken into account so that we know what those are?

Lord Rooker: The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise the issue, which comes up in one of the amendments. We want local authorities to come forward with pilots that are revenue neutral for the tax payer, which is important. Obviously there will an admin cost for setting up the scheme—work has to be done there—but local authorities can find savings by doing it within their overall budget. We hope they will come forward with the economics of specific schemes to address those issues. We have a tiny sum set aside in Defra, not to fund local authorities but to assist in oiling and certainly—maybe—for the evaluation. Evaluation of the schemes is important. But we must not let the issue of administrative red tape and burdens be such that it nullifies the schemes. There has to be a net benefit to society.

Lord Greaves: I thank noble Lords who took part in this brief general debate and the Minister for his comments. I was desperately trying to avoid saying at any stage in the debate that this is all a load of rubbish but the Minister pre-empted me, or half pre-empted me. But I will try to avoid saying it again. I will also try to avoid touching further on some of the issues that have been raised as they will be discussed in later amendments. I have one or two questions. All the stuff that has been produced about schemes in other parts of the world has not convinced me that those are more than a series of local individual schemes that work in some places. Where have schemes such as this one been tried but failed? Those are not in the list and are not being discussed, for obvious reasons. Those schemes stopped when they failed and they are no longer taking place. There may not be any such scheme. Perhaps every charging scheme ever introduced on the basis of the amount of waste thrown away has been successful. I wonder about that. I am not at all convinced by the information I have been given so far, including the stuff from the Defra website—which, as I said, is very useful.
	I have to welcome the fact that the Government are piloting this—not the particular scheme but the principle of piloting things with local authorities. So many things are dumped on local authorities. They do it whether they like it or not and just have to make the best of it. The concept of piloting is a good one and I hope it spreads within Defra, the DCLG and other government departments. We will see. The Minister apologises for the fact that it is not a full-blown scheme. If it was a full-blown scheme, I would want to divide the Committee on it every 10 minutes. This is not the kind of thing you can impose without piloting at all. To that extent, I welcome it.
	The Minister said that householders have an important part to play. Of course they do; their part is crucial. However, that is not the point at issue. The point at issue is whether the best way of getting householders to play their part is to impose financial penalties and to hand out financial benefits or whether it is to provide a good collection service that will encourage people to use it. All the evidence is that, where good recycling services are provided, the proportion of stuff that goes to recycling goes up and up. That is what has happened when local authorities have done this over the past few years. Local authorities now have a whole mix of different schemes in different areas. If all the best schemes from the all the areas could be carried out everywhere, we might achieve more than the Government will through their proposals.
	On the question of which councils are involved, I am afraid that Joan Ruddock let the cat out of the bag when she said that the department was talking to 18 councils. If she has mentioned the figure 18, 18 names must exist. It is those 18 names that we are asking for but which no one will provide. That is not satisfactory. I accept that there may well be preliminary discussions, almost certainly with council officers. One wonders how many councillors on those 18 councils know that the discussions are taking place and what they think about them if they know. Who knows? We do not know where these councils are and we cannot find out. I cannot find a council that is enthusiastic about doing this, although perhaps other noble Lords know of some and we will learn of them later.
	The Minister said that formal application processes would be developed. That introduces the question of timetables. Will this happen after the Bill has completed all its stages and becomes law, when it goes to the Commons or at some other stage? It would be interesting to know that.
	Finally, the Minister did not answer my questions about the savings for households, particularly the national saving of £94 million. That is a specific sum, but we do not know how it was arrived at and what proportion of householders in England would have to take part to achieve such a saving. If the Minister has that information now, it would be helpful to have it; if he has not, perhaps he will find it and let us know.

Lord Rooker: I apologise for that. I will see whether I can get that information on the £94 million; it was not immediately to hand.
	As I said, the local authorities that are in discussions at the moment will not necessarily be the ones that come forward with a pilot proposal, so there is no benefit to any of them. Let us not forget that we consulted fully on this. It is not as though the issue turned up in the Bill by accident. A full consultation on a scheme from Defra was launched last summer and ran over the summer period. It was much commented on in the media, although not all those comments were based on the facts.
	Modelling done in Defra showed that savings of £94 million could be available to England if around 62 per cent of households were covered by a waste incentive scheme. The figure of £94 million came from modelling.
	Apparently, my colleague Joan Ruddock mentioned authorities that had made inquiries for information. This was at a Select Committee hearing on 7 December. I think that she mentioned the figure 14, not 18, but I will not argue about that, as the issue is still the same and we are not going to publish any names.
	There will be informal guidance in the spring, followed by a formal arrangement. At the moment, local authorities have no power to charge. We want to incentivise householders. We want them to see that there is money to be gained by doing this; we are not coming in and saying, "You've got to pay for this". However, local authorities have no powers under existing legislation to do that. The chances of their treasurers and legal people allowing them to present schemes to the Government before the Bill gets Royal Assent are fairly non-existent, but we are planning for a fairly early Royal Assent, subject to consideration of the remaining stages in this place and the other place.

Clause 51 agreed to.
	Schedule 5 [Waste reduction schemes]:

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: moved Amendment No. 183BB:
	Schedule 5, page 55, line 36, after "waste," insert—
	"( ) to produce less commercial, industrial or service waste,"

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I am sure that we are all sustained by the Minister's optimism, as we have been throughout our consideration of the Bill. I start by congratulating him and the Government on the announcement of the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, as the chairman of the Committee on Climate Change. I speak for the Opposition and, I am sure, for the whole House in acknowledging the fact that a significant, distinguished and experienced person now has this important role. It is very good news for the Bill.
	I say at the outset that we welcome the inclusion of the subject of waste in the Bill and the idea of piloting. The amendment is designed to address the area of waste—or, as it is now often referred to, strategic resource materials—that the schedule fails to identify. I say "strategic resource materials" as I think that the time will soon come when what we think of as waste and as a liability will be seen as a resource of value. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell identified many issues in this regard. Our amendment would broaden the scope of the waste reduction provisions to include industrial, commercial and service industry waste, particularly as those sectors inevitably produce much waste that is not greatly different from domestic waste. I acknowledge the progress that has been made by business and government in recognising the importance of commercial waste recycling. However, it is a remarkable deficit that there is no specific mention of commercial and industrial waste in the Bill.
	As my noble friend Lord Cathcart has pointed out, many shops, offices and commercial premises produce waste that currently ends up in landfill. They are banned from putting hazardous waste in normal collection points and many of them are having great difficulty in arranging collection of small, often irregular, quantities. The rest of their refuse is often domestic in nature—paper, cardboard and discarded food—for which they adopt a variety of schemes. Food-contaminated waste is a real headache for businesses to get collected. I know that McDonald's, although it is not necessarily seen as the hero of the hour on many issues, is extremely sensitive to opinion on this matter and spends a lot of time seeking to deal with this problem. Some businesses pay for council collection and there appears to be considerable scope for waste reduction schemes to include them. Others join together and book a skip from time to time, although certainly much of this waste does not go into recycling. Will the Minister explain why such a large sector of the economy and the community is apparently to be excluded from the important provisions of this schedule? I beg to move.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I am delighted to respond to this brief debate. My noble friend Lord Rooker has given us quite a comprehensive explanation of the policy objectives for this part of the Bill but, in the spirit of the Committee stage, I hope that I can help further with the noble Lord's amendment.
	The waste provisions are enabling powers allowing local authorities to provide a financial incentive for householders to produce less waste, as we have just heard. We have deliberately limited the scope of the schemes to the domestic sector. The commercial, industrial and service sectors already pay for what they throw away through contracts that they have with waste collectors.
	That is an existing real financial incentive. Another scheme on top of that would be superfluous. Moreover, local authorities collect waste from relatively few organisations in those sectors. Normally, the organisations use private contractors. So even if those sectors were not already paying, giving local authorities powers to financially incentivise them would have a very marginal effect.
	In contrast, almost all householder waste is collected by local authorities and, as we have just heard, household waste makes up nearly a quarter of all waste going to landfill in England. We are continuing to work to reduce waste being produced by other sectors as well. The Waste Strategy 2007 sets out our intention to set a new national target for the reduction of commercial and industrial waste going to landfill. However, it is not appropriate to include them in the householder scheme. The amendment proposes doing just that. So, for the reasons that I have set out, I hope that the noble Lord will consider withdrawing it.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: In high streets where there are a number of houses and flats and a number of small shops all mixed up, one usually sees the waste van at a critical moment on a Friday when everyone is moving about and it is blocking the street completely. There is a mixture of householders and shops on such streets. Are the shops counted as householders? What the noble Baroness said about the disposal of industrial waste does not apply to them.

Lord Avebury: The noble Lord mentioned McDonald's, and I am constrained to say that fast-food establishments create waste that is the responsibility of local authorities. If you look at an area such as where I live in Camberwell, you see the detritus of their products all over the streets and the local authority has an obligation to clean that up. So they are creating an expense for local authorities that they do not reimburse. Any scheme—it may not be under this part of the Bill—that obliges the manufacturers or producers of fast food to pay a contribution to the local authorities in whose areas they operate, so that any expense for the collection of that refuse does not fall on the council tax payer, would be most welcome to everybody—to local authorities and the inhabitants who have to put up with that rubbish.

Baroness Byford: I come back with a rider. I wonder whether before the Bill came into being the Government took into account what I would still class as junk mail. I certainly raised the issue on Second Reading. Many of us as householders regularly get issued with a free this or a free that. Charities appealing for money will send you a free pen, or whatever. I wondered whether that side had been tackled at all or even been given any thought. We try to recycle it, as I am sure many others do, but most of it goes back. What I would call free advertising or promoting goods through the letterbox to the householder is a big industry. Have the Government taken that into account in their deliberations?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: To come back on the junk mail/charity mail point, I know that thinking is going on in another part of government about how to make it easier for individual householders to get themselves off those mailing lists. That is a separate issue and it is hard to do. I accept that more could be done. As a former charity professional, it is very unfortunate that this issue continues to dog the image of charity fundraising. That is not quite for this discussion, but it is taken seriously.
	To pick up the point about shops, shops have their waste collected separately and they pay the council or the contractor. We need to be clear that the sort of pilot schemes that we are talking about would be designed to take into account particular localities. A scheme might come forward to address the problems of people living in flats, who may face different issues from those faced by people living on a leafy estate. We very much hope that local authorities will think in very practical terms about the logistics of recycling and waste minimisation as people live their daily lives. That is how we have to make the incentivisation work.
	On the question of McDonald's, and speaking generically about fast-food outlets, we would of course expect such businesses to be paying the business rate. As I understand it, local authorities go to quite some effort to ensure that they pick up the cost of litter collection around their stores. For example, sometimes you see individuals sponsored by those companies going out around the store collecting litter. Sometimes you see special litter bins in the area of the stores. However, the noble Lord highlights an important point. We must expect business to play its part in the same way as we hope that householders will. In the Bill, we are talking about creating provisions for some important pilots. I am not trying to suggest that the questions of the commercial sector are not important; we just do not propose to cover them in these pilot schemes.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: The noble Baroness was very fair in what she said. I wanted to suggest that I thought it unfortunate that the Bill did not go further and extend the whole business of waste beyond the purely domestic sector. From what the Minister said in our first debate, it is a considerable achievement to have got this section in at all, so we welcome that. I hope that the Government see waste as a continuum from domestic through commercial to industrial levels. Once one leaves the conventional recycling area, an awful lot of waste that could be recycled is not. There are huge opportunities for improving the percentage of material that is recycled and reducing that which goes into landfill.
	I mentioned McDonald's not because of the business of street litter but to emphasise how difficult it is for some commercial businesses. I believe that McDonald's is genuinely seeking to find ways to deal with its food-contaminated waste—all those cans, for example, which the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell, mentioned, that end up in those little bins in those places where we eat far too often for our own good for the convenience of being able to get a quick meal. The truth is that McDonald's has a great deal of difficulty in finding agencies that will take that material away. The whole business of commercial disposal and recycling will need considerable development if we are to make the improvements that we need.
	Given the nature of the debate and the very productive way in which it has opened up the issue, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183C:
	Schedule 5, page 56, line 3, leave out "may" and insert "must"

Lord Greaves: I shall speak also to the other amendments in the group in my name, Amendments Nos. 183D, 183ZA and 183ZB.
	We are now firmly into Schedule 5. This group of amendments covers the questions of the areas to be covered by the pilots, the number of pilots, and how representative the pilots will be. Amendments Nos. 183C and 183D, which go together, would take out of the Bill the provision that the pilots,
	"may cover the whole or any part of the area of a waste collection authority",
	and replace it with,
	"must cover the whole of the area of a waste collection authority".
	The Minister briefly mentioned this provision in previous debates. It is not clear why a useful and sensible pilot would cover only part of a local authority. The Minister said previously that that the reason was to give an authority the flexibility to decide for itself. But, throughout this part of the Bill, there are issues of equity and fairness. The purpose of the amendment is to probe how such schemes might work.
	Some residents in a particular collection authority area would be covered by such schemes, but some would not. People in some places may have to buy bags at 20p or £1 a bag—whatever it is—but in other areas they would not. For those who have to buy them—who to pay up front for a service that others are getting free—issues of equity and fairness will arise. The same applies for those who have to pay more for a bigger bin, a more frequent collection, or whatever. People will believe that it is not fair that others within the same council are being treated differently. The Minister may say that it is up to the council to cope with that but there is an issue of principle here which the Government have to address.
	Amendment No. 183ZA deals with the number of pilots. I must say that the numbering of the amendments in this part of the Bill is a nightmare, but no doubt we will all cope. Amendment No. 183ZA is also for probing purposes. It would leave out the line that says that there can be only five pilots. The obvious question is: why five? Why not six, 10 or 50? What is the justification for five? One guess would be that someone has worked out that £100,000 is the amount that will have to be paid to a local authority to take part in the pilot, and that £1.5 million divided by five authorities over three years comes—if I have understood it right—to £100,000 a year. If that was the only sum that Defra could get out of the Government for this, there could be only five pilots.
	The question of the number of pilots is also linked to Amendment No. 183ZB, which inserts into the Bill new wording to insist that the areas covered by the pilots should be representative. The amendment states:
	"The choice of pilot areas shall be made so as to include a representative selection of types of properties and households, urban, suburban and rural areas, and other social and economic conditions".
	That is a slightly more detailed version of the Conservatives' amendment in this group.
	It seems self-evident that the more pilots we have, the greater will be the variety of areas that can be tested. Think of the types of area that could be included. There are far-flung rural areas: uplands, farms and hamlets. There are more compact rural areas with larger villages, and those could be very different in the lowlands. There are large council estates, some with blocks of flats and others with low-rise garden houses. There are new towns. There are inner cities with private flats, council flats, housing associations, town houses, and mixtures of shops and housing of the kind that the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, mentioned. There are garden suburbs. There are Pennine towns and villages in areas such as the one where I live, with higgledy-piggledy terraces and cottages. There is the question of students and of houses in multiple occupation generally, and probably lots of others that I have not thought of. There are many different sorts of area. If this is going to be rolled out to 60 or 65 per cent of areas across the country, those areas will have to be part of a pilot. One wonders whether that can be done with only five pilots.
	The Government say that there are four types of scheme: the big bins and little bins, the chip and bin, the frequency-based, and the pound-a-throw schemes—or give them their official names if you like. If you have four types of scheme and nine or 10 types of area, it makes you wonder how five pilots will be enough. It may be that you cannot get more than five councils to volunteer, but that is a different matter. Nevertheless, if it is going to be piloted properly, it has to be piloted in lots of different sorts of area. The fear—it is a very genuine fear—is that it will be piloted in easy areas. It is easy to see how a wheelie-bin based scheme can work in a practical way in suburban areas where there are gardens, every house has its own entrance and it is easy to identify the bin for that house. It is easy to see how it can work in that sort of area, whether it is right or wrong. It is not easy to see how it will work in a lot of other areas. Unless the Government pilot in a sufficient range of different areas, a very substantial rollout is probably impractical, and if it were enforced, would probably not be a good idea. So will the pilots give a full and true picture? The question probed in the amendment is whether five pilots are enough. What guarantees can the Government give that the areas will be representative? I beg to move.

Earl Cathcart: The first two amendments, if accepted, would make the Bill read:
	"A waste reduction scheme ... must cover the whole of the area of a waste collection authority".
	This seems sensible as, once the scheme has been introduced nationally, the whole area of a local authority would have been tested by the pilot scheme. It will provide a fuller picture when examining the results of the pilot schemes than if there is cherry-picking. When we looked at Clause 51, the Minister said that councils should be able to do part of themselves rather than the whole. But my council, for instance—Breckland Council—is a rural council which has five market towns. If Breckland Council was able to just test one of the towns, it would not be testing the rural part of this district. Therefore, we will not learn anything about the problems that the rural areas may have.
	We believe that the choice of pilot areas selected should reflect the different types of authority in question and, in our Amendment No. 183ZAA, we wanted one which was predominantly rural in nature and one that was totally urban, to try to get the Minister to recognise that there is a need to test the different types of local authority. There seems little point in rolling out a scheme nationally following a pilot scheme if that pilot scheme has not tested the various constituent areas that make up a local authority. The Minister has already said that there was a need to target a range of different types of authority.

Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I say to my noble friend that I think there is some merit in what the Government are doing here. In the area in which I live, a council which is rather good at public relations is trying out, in one town after another, new ways of dealing with wheelie bins. It is not trying them out in all towns at once but in one at a time and it is adjusting the scheme when it has experience of each town. In that way, it is getting the public, who in our case are rather averse to the whole idea, more interested. It is working, so I think that there is some merit in this scheme, although the Bill does not apply to the area where I live. Our scheme may be totally different, although I suspect not when it comes to the issue of rubbish, so there is a different method from that employed in my noble friend's local authority and I have some sympathy for the Government's way of doing things.

Lord Rooker: I touched on this issue in general terms when I dealt with Clause 51. We have to trust local government. It does not make sense to be prescriptive in this part of the Bill, particularly when we are looking at piloting what would be a major national policy. Probably the best way to learn something is by letting local authorities have the chance to design a scheme that best fits their local needs and implement it in areas where they consider it to be most appropriate. For a start, that would increase the likely effectiveness of the scheme and we think that it would be good for the local population.
	I doubt whether all five pilot areas would want to include all their residents, but I hope that we do not get the situation that happens now with residential parking schemes where some people have to pay to park in front of their house, while others in the next road do not. However, one person does not go knocking on his neighbour's door, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, implied, saying, "You're having to pay for something that I am getting for free". Such schemes are usually implemented at the request of local residents anyway following a ballot and consultation but, even when there is a ballot, not everyone in the area will vote for it. This is a question of looking for local circumstances and meeting local needs.
	The evidence collected from the pilots will be pretty crucial, and it would not make sense if they did not reflect the various parts of the country both demographically and geographically. Obviously, the local flexibility that comes from the pilots will go into a pool of evidence, and we think that, as they stand, the provisions offer the best terms.
	I do not know why five pilot areas have been stipulated rather than six, but our view is that five local authorities—we do not know which ones they will be—looking at pilots in their areas is the right number. A local authority may say, "We want a pilot in this part and that part of our local authority". It will still be a pilot but in two different parts of a local authority. If local authorities want to do that, it is up to them, and I do not think that at the moment we should put any hurdles in their way.
	Obviously, we would like there to be a balance of urban and rural, and certainly high- and low-density, populations in the pilots. That is axiomatic. Of course, we have to look at local authorities' current performance and at what they are able to do. Some local authorities might look on the pilots as a means of substantially improving their index of performance on recycling. Taking part could put them up the league as being good, competent local authorities, together with all the other good things that can flow from that, such as having the Government on their back less. Therefore, we want to ensure that the tests are effective and we think that five pilots would probably be sufficient. However, we are not being prescriptive about the size and nature of the pilots.
	Amendments Nos. 183C and 183D would prevent an authority applying a waste reduction scheme to just a part or parts of its area. As I said, it is up to the local authority where the scheme is applied. It does not have to cover the whole area, although it can if the authority so desires. If it is an area with good recycling in place or one that has a type of waste collection system that could easily be adapted to a waste reduction scheme, the authority might want to seize on that and build on what it has. Instead, the amendments require that any scheme should apply to the whole local authority area, but we do not think that that makes sense in a pilot.
	In addition, the amendments could significantly limit the number of authorities interested in coming forward to take part in a pilot, because they would reduce their flexibility administratively and financially and, from a professional point of view, as regards the collection of the waste. In some areas, it might be far too costly to roll out that kind of operation because of the nature of the housing in the area, whereas in the rest of the local authority area there could be great benefits for everyone. Therefore, we do not want fewer interested local authorities, as that would reduce our ability to select the best pilots. That is why I cannot accept Amendments Nos. 183C and 183D.
	Amendment No. 183ZA would remove the limit on the number of areas which can pilot a waste reduction scheme. Currently, we say that there should be no more than five. As I have explained, we consider that having up to five pilots will allow us to test in depth a sufficient number of schemes around the country. The more flexibility we have, the more likely we are to get more local authorities coming forward as potential pilots. That will give us a greater choice and help to ensure that we choose those that better reflect the whole country. We believe that we can do that provided we get a good-sized sample. The sample can be broad but we want it to be manageable as well, and we think that we can get that with up to five pilot areas.
	Amendments Nos. 183ZAA and 183ZB would place conditions on the types of areas selected for piloting. We will be looking for a range of areas. It would be preposterous if we did not pilot in any rural areas—we recognise the terms "rural", "isolated" and "low density"—in areas where recycling materials may or may not be easily collectable, or in urban areas, where it can also sometimes be very difficult to carry out recycling programmes. We want to look at as wide an area as we can and not be prescriptive.
	I am very conscious of what I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. I never said that the money that we got in a little pot was for the local authorities and I did not mean to imply it either. I said that it was a small amount of money that could facilitate some of the pilots, and, as I have said, some of the pilots could save local authorities a lot of money—certainly for evaluation.
	Regarding the calculation, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was out by a factor of three. The £1.5 million a year for three years amounts to £4.5 million, which is somewhat more than the figure of £100,000 that he cited. It is not for us to pay the local authorities for the pilots. We are to discuss that with them when they come forward with a business plan, but that small sum of money is there for some of the incidental issues.

Lord Greaves: I am grateful for the Minister's last comment correcting my arithmetic, or perhaps I misread the figure. I thought that it was £1.5 million over three years, whereas it is £1.5 million a year, which means that rather more money is available. Perhaps I may pick up that point. If local authorities do not get some government grant to introduce these pilots, I do not think that the number taking part will be five, as the Government say; I think that it will be zero, given the state of local government budgets this year. There has been a very tough settlement in much of the country—certainly for collection authorities, which are often district councils. They have been very hard-hit this year, as, I understand, have London boroughs. I do not think that people will come forward if they have to put the money up front to run the schemes.
	The Minister may be right that local authorities will save loads of money, but I do not think that they will. It is a pipe dream, because the savings that they make will be offset by the costs of dealing with additional fly-tipping and so on. I accept that that can be tested in pilots but I do not accept that there are no significant set-up costs for at least some of these schemes. If we have a system in which people are provided with a rebate or are sent an extra bill each year on the basis of the volume of non-recyclable refuse that they put out, there has to be a system for measuring how much refuse they put out, which will require quite a lot of investment, and there has to be a bureaucracy in place for sending out the bills and chasing them up when people do not pay.
	On the Government's own figures, the bills might be only £20, £30 or £40 a year, and chasing them through the local courts is not a cheap process; it would certainly cost more than the amount of money that comes back with the bills, although I suppose people might have to pay the court costs as well. The idea that there will no substantial setting-up cost to run these pilots is totally unreasonable—indeed, it is just wrong. I notice that Mr Eric Pickles, with whom I normally do not have much in common apart from the city that we both come from, has been asking penetrating questions in the House of Commons about these setting-up costs and not getting satisfactory answers, so far as I am concerned. The Minister said that the Government wanted more flexibility and a good sample size. This is at the heart of the debate. More flexibility and a good sample size frankly do not add up to five pilots. This is an issue of principle, and we may wish to return to it at a later stage of the Bill.
	The Minister also said that there are differences now because there is residents' parking. If you go putting in the park—if parks still have putting greens—you pay for the putting because you are getting an extra service. Residents' parking is just the same; you get a parking place somewhere in your street because you pay the extra money and other people are kept out. That is what a residents' parking scheme is. As the Minister said, it is done by agreement, perhaps by a majority vote by people living in that street. You are paying for something extra. Under the Government's scheme, people will be penalised or given a bounty for improving or worsening their behaviour. That is the difference. They are not getting a better service; they are being told that they will have to pay more unless they improve their behaviour. If they improve their behaviour, they will pay less. That is completely different.
	My final point relates to wheelie bins in one area after another—a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, made. She is absolutely right; that is how councils by and large have been introducing recycling. They have introduced a pilot scheme into part of their borough and then extended it. The difference here is that there is a financial penalty, and people will have to pay more. That is what people will think is very unfair.
	This group of amendments deal with issues of pretty important principle, to which we may want to return. At this stage, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 183D not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183E:
	Schedule 5, page 56, leave out lines 5 to 7

Lord Greaves: In moving Amendment No. 183E, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 183FA, 183ZZA and 183ZZB.
	Amendment No. 183E is another probing amendment that deals with the types of premises to which the scheme may apply. It would delete paragraph 1(2)(b) of new Schedule 2AA in Schedule 5, which says:
	"A waste reduction scheme ... may apply to all domestic premises, to domestic premises other than those of a specified description or to specified descriptions of domestic premises".
	Again, the amendment probes the way the Government see this working. The previous group of amendments dealt with the way in which a scheme can apply to part of a district or a collection authority and not to the rest of it. Paragraph 1(2)(b) says that a scheme can apply to some types of premises and not to others within a particular part of the collection authority area. It would be helpful if the Government explained what this is and why it is, and again how they see the principles of equity and fairness applying if some premises and households in a ward, a village or a district are in the scheme and some are not. Is this not a recipe for setting neighbour against neighbour?
	Amendments Nos. 183FA, 183ZZA and 183ZZB deal with composite hereditaments—I use the word "hereditaments" because it appears in rating legislation for properties, some of which are the sort that the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, talked about, which are partly commercial and partly domestic. Typically, they are workshops where the owner or operator lives on the premises, or small shops which people live above or behind and which are rated for commercial purposes at commercial rates while the rest of the property is not and is subject to council tax. These are often known in local authorities as mixed hereditaments, but the correct title as defined in the Local Government Finance Act 1988 is composite hereditaments. The last two amendments in the group simply define that this is what is meant.
	It is not clear why a couple of corner shops on an estate or some other area of housing that are entitled to throw out domestic refuse each week or fortnight and that take part in the recycling scheme should be excluded from the system that applies to all the other domestic properties in the area. There is already a separate system for their commercial waste, which will be collected separately and charged for separately. There is no problem there; the probing question for the Government is why they propose that a composite hereditament such as the one that I have just described, which takes part in the normal domestic waste collection system, should not or could not be included in the Government's new mantra of flexibility for local authorities and could not be included in the pilot scheme. I look forward to the Minister's answers. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker: I think I can dispose of this quite quickly without going through my speech if I tell the noble Lord that the term "composite hereditament" is already legally covered by the definition "domestic premises" in paragraph 1(2)(b), to which he referred.

Lord Greaves: I am very grateful for that, but that is not the advice that I have had from local government lawyers who have looked at this. Perhaps the Minister will write to me and explain why he thinks that.

Lord Rooker: I do not have to write to the noble Lord; I shall answer him now. I have the finest brains in Whitehall drafting my notes. The term "composite hereditament", which he read out, is already covered by "domestic premises", as used in the schedule, so a separate category of composite hereditament is unnecessary. It means that "domestic waste" covers the element of waste collected from a composite hereditament, which means waste from domestic premises as opposed to commercial industrial waste, so the corner shop would get its domestic waste collected. That answers the noble Lord's whole question, which is why I thought I could dispose of this quite quickly.

Lord Greaves: I think I am grateful for that. Obviously I will look at this again, but at this stage I am extremely grateful for what the Minister says. Will he respond to Amendment No. 183FA?

Lord Rooker: Amendment No. 183FA would apply schemes to "composite hereditaments" and
	"in relation to... domestic waste",
	rather than "domestic premises". As far as I am aware, I have already covered that.

Lord Greaves: It was my confusion: I do beg the Minister's pardon, I meant Amendment No. 183E—the first amendment. I am getting confused by all of these numbers.

Lord Rooker: Amendment No. 183E would remove the language defining the unit to which the waste reduction scheme would apply. The unit is "domestic premises", and that is the term used in existing waste language. Without the language in legislation on where the scheme would apply, the framework for a waste reduction scheme is legally insufficient. So, that defines domestic premises, and the local authority will decide in its pilot application which such premises are in its area. It will be up to the local authority to have a pilot area. We will not define it, but it will have domestic premises; authorities can choose some and not others. That is the basic meaning, and they ought to have that flexibility.

Lord Greaves: We are not having a meeting of minds here. Do the Government anticipate that there could be a street in which some domestic premises were included in the scheme, and some of a different kind—perhaps because they had three storeys rather than one, or were flats instead of houses—were not included?

Lord Rooker: Yes, that is exactly what I have just said. It would be up to the local authority to say which kind of domestic premises it wants to include or exclude from its pilot, and where they are. In some geographical areas, it might say, "We will take all the premises"; in other areas, it might say, "Because of the nature of some premises, they will not fit the pilot that we, as local authority A, are going to run". But in local authority B's pilot, elsewhere in the country, it might say, "It would be our role to ensure that those premises might be included". However, it is up to the local authority.

Lord Greaves: I will withdraw the amendment but, before doing so, the idea that some people will be paying extra to have their rubbish removed, while people next door are not—for some technical reason from the nature of their houses—is not the real world. A great deal of thought will have to take place before anyone could introduce such a scheme, which would cause mayhem and set neighbour against neighbour. That is what I fear. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 183F had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
	[Amendment No. 183FA not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183G:
	Schedule 5, page 56, line 14, leave out from beginning to "and" in line 15

Lord Greaves: I will be brief in moving Amendment No. 183G, which is a probing amendment that asks the Government to provide some information on how they think this might work. The Bill, in setting out paragraph 2(1)(b) of the new schedule to the 1990 Act, says that
	"the scheme takes account of the needs of groups who might be unduly disadvantaged by it".
	I cannot find out what that means from the useful letter that the Minister sent round with his fact sheet, or from other materials or anywhere on the Defra website. I really do not understand what a local authority is supposed to do to take
	"account of the needs of groups who might be unduly disadvantaged".
	I will listen to the Minister before saying anything else. I beg to move.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: As the noble Lord has just explained, this amendment suggests removing the part of the sub-paragraph ensuring that the position of those who might be "unduly disadvantaged" by a waste reduction scheme should be considered carefully when designing the scheme. I understand that this is a probing amendment, and I hope that I can answer the noble Lord's probing.
	This is an important protection, enabling authorities to make an independent assessment of their proposals. The existing sub-paragraph requires local authorities to look at how their pilot waste reduction scheme might impact on different groups. The authority would then decide whether special measures should be put in place to protect those who potentially face an undue disadvantage. That is a sensible public protection. A thorough assessment of impacts is also part of good policymaking and delivery on the ground. For instance, some groups have little or no ability to reduce their residual—that is, non-recycled—waste. We will be working with authorities to consult on and produce guidance on the types of groups authorities may wish to consider; for example, young families, low-income groups and the disabled.
	Guidance will also cover ways in which local authorities may wish to take account of disadvantaged groups, as special provisions to counteract undue disadvantage are a common feature of many successful schemes in Europe and North America, as the noble Lord knows. Provisions often take the form of extra sacks, or allowances, or lower bin costs, or exempting groups from the scheme altogether. Ultimately, though it will be up to local authorities to decide how they want to go about that, according to local circumstances and priorities. However, as part of the designation process, we will want to carefully assess their proposals to run those pilot schemes.
	We believe that the sub-paragraph as it stands effectively secures both public protection and local flexibility. On that basis and to ensure proper balance, I hope that the noble Lord will consider withdrawing his probing amendment.

Lord Greaves: I will withdraw it in a minute or two. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that there had to be thorough assessment of the policy impact. I wonder how many people would have to be employed, and for how long, to draw up these schemes, to produce all those impacts and to work out how it is going to work.
	I can think of a number of disadvantaged groups. The Minister referred to some of them; for example, groups based on income, or retired people who might be excluded from it altogether. Then there is the question of which benefits, and so on. Will it be means-tested, and will there have to be another system—or, will it simply piggy-back on an existing means-testing system, for example on housing benefit? On family size, one fundamental problem in charging people more if they put out more refuse is that a household with more people living in it will, inevitably, have more refuse and recycling to put out. No matter how much recycling takes place, it will on average have more residual. So, is size of family a matter of disadvantage, or is it only a matter of disadvantage for a poor family?
	The noble Baroness mentioned mobility—there are issues of mobility, disability, illness and so on. It has been suggested, for example, that there should be dispensations for people with children under 6 months. So it goes on. Where will it stop? Is disadvantage concerned with the type of house or property, or is that taken care of somewhere else? Might cultural issues come into this?
	I return to the fact that setting up these schemes will require finance. It is inconceivable to have a scheme where, in some areas, perhaps 50 per cent of people will be excepted and for that not to involve the local authority employing more staff, investing in computer systems and in systems on the collection lorries. If people are to have a different number of sacks, which are being handed out as people go around—if that is how it will be—then there will be have a system that such-and-such a house gets so many sacks while another house gets fewer. This house gets one, and the house next door gets three. The bureaucracy involved in setting up and keeping tabs on such a scheme, even in this wonderful computerised world, is quite frankly mind-boggling. The more we hear about the detail of these schemes, the more unrealistic they seem to be. But the Minister has given us some more information which I will read carefully. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183H:
	Schedule 5, page 56, line 15, leave out "and"

Lord Greaves: This is quite an important group of amendments because they relate to the conditions that will have to be met before a local authority can set up a pilot scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, said earlier that the Government would be looking at the criteria for judging bids, so it may be that some of these matters will be considered as part of those criteria. It will be interesting to hear what the Minister has to say about this.
	A number of conditions are set out in the Bill, one of which states that there has to be an anti fly-tipping strategy, something that all collection authorities should have anyway. Amendment No. 183J would insert the word "successful" to lay it down that the authority had to have a track record of successful action against fly-tipping. Every local authority nowadays has strategies standing several feet high, but it does not mean that they are successful or even carried out at all. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his Written Answer given on 16 January to a Question for Written Answer, No. 1130, that I tabled. It has given me a lot of information about what the Government would consider to be a successful fly-tipping strategy, and I shall therefore say a lot less about it now than I might otherwise have done.
	Amendment No. 183K is about packaging and echoes the point made earlier by the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, about going back to the commercial source of some of the waste. The amendment suggests that, if you are going to target householders and potentially penalise them financially if they do not improve their behaviour in terms of the amount of residual waste that they throw out, fairness dictates that you should tackle one of the two main components of domestic waste, which is packaging waste of all kinds. The amendment provides that local authorities should have a strategy with the main local retailers to reduce the volume of packaging produced. This ought to be happening anyway, and it would have been a better subject for legislation than the one we are looking at now, so I suggest that looking at retailers should take place as well.
	I turn to another highly relevant issue. I have a copy of the new and excitingly titled London Local Authorities (Shopping Bags) Bill, which seeks to reduce the number of use-once shopping bags in London. I think that it has been presented to Parliament and will be looked at in the appropriate way in the House. It has a great deal of good sense in it, and I wonder whether the Minister can confirm that this is the sort of practical thing that the Government might give a fair wind to when it comes before us. I will not say more about it now because I will have a chance to do that later.
	Amendment No. 183L refers to kitchen waste, the other main component of residual waste that has to be reduced if the total amount of residual waste is to be substantially reduced. Kitchen waste is a major factor in hampering authorities that want to separate waste after they collect it rather than having kerb-side separation. If lots of kitchen waste is commingled—the word used earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Crickhowell—it contaminates everything else. Even cans, which might otherwise be collected easily, are difficult to separate.
	Home composting ought to be encouraged much more than it is, but you can only compost some kitchen waste, not all of it. Bread and things like that can be composted, but not bones and all the meat that people throw away nowadays. The amendment suggests that as a sine qua non for having a system that penalises people for throwing out non-recyclable, residual waste, there ought to be a local system of collecting kitchen waste. A number of local authorities do this very efficiently, and many others would like to but cannot because they cannot afford to set the system up. If the Government want to encourage local authorities to substantially reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill, that is the absolute top priority. I should also say that this kind of waste causes the methane that makes up 3 per cent of greenhouse gases. If the Government are really serious about reducing the impact of domestic waste on global warming, they will tackle kitchen waste as the top priority and not propose this rather tin pot scheme.
	Finally, Amendment 183N probes the powers to amend the provisions that the Government are seeking here to see how wide they are and what is meant by them. I beg to move.

The Duke of Montrose: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for clarifying Amendment No. 183J. We certainly agree with him that any scheme introduced should be a successful one. It is hard to see how a scheme can be defined as successful before it is introduced. But he said that this was to do with fly-tipping, so that may be another factor.
	On the question of packaging waste, the Minister was kind enough to outline at the beginning the various schemes that the Government are proposing, but a lot of pressure must be put on the Government to seek a reduction in this kind of waste. However, it may be that simple things like plastic bags can be attacked at a more local level.
	When speaking to Amendment No. 183L, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said that kitchen waste contaminated much of the general waste. We feel that it needs to be defined more closely. While it contains all the usual vegetable matter such as fruit peel and pepper cores, it can include other elements such as meat and bones. In the early days, people would not know exactly what it was that they were supposed to put in the kitchen waste bin.
	I have a question for the Minister. There is no great move in this country, as one finds in other parts of the world, to have what are called garbage disposal units. In a country area such as the one where I live, kitchen waste is not a problem because the dogs and the chickens out the back will eat a certain amount and you can compost the rest. But in a densely populated urban situation, kitchen waste is what makes people worry about whether their rubbish will be collected once a week or once a fortnight. There is a machine that can churn it up and put it down the drain, but whether that is frowned on in this carbon-saving world I am not sure. Perhaps the Minister can help us.
	We agree with Amendment No. 183N. As we have said before, the Government seem to delight in Bills that do not have enough detail in them, and this clause is one more attempt to give the Government powers to legislate without having to consult Parliament. We support the idea that a recycling scheme should be more closely defined.

Lord Crickhowell: I had not intended to speak again in Committee—no doubt, the Minister will be greatly relieved to hear that—but, as the noble Lord moving the amendment mentioned my name and as I am genuinely puzzled by Amendment No. 183L, which deals with kitchen waste, I wish to ask a question.
	I do not know what kitchen waste is. In my borough, Wandsworth, we have quite an efficient council. I split up the paper, vast quantities of which come uninvited through my door, including mail order and all the communications that come to Members of the House. It is unwanted and unread, and I have to dispose of it. One container takes the plastic wrapping which, irritatingly, is on all the paper and has to be separated from it and put in another container, otherwise the paper is not taken. I have a container for bottles, and the rest is kitchen waste. The tops from the bottles, which I solemnly unscrew, I pop in there, and the aluminium containers for the food that, I confess, I occasionally buy from my local supermarket when I am looking after myself tend to go into the same container. Basically, for most households, kitchen waste is the residue. I do not think that many households actually separate out the food content from all the other content of the rubbish. It is not clear whether that is what the mover of the amendment wants us to do or whether it is practical in operation.
	In my home in Wales the situation is similar. We are in a remote area, and so we do not have such a good separation unless we go down to the disposal area. We put all the bottles, plastic or glass, in one container; we do not put paper in another container because it is not collected, and we have to burn it on the bonfire in my garden or dispose of it in some other way. Again, the residue is the kitchen waste, and you put everything else into that container. It is not a large quantity; it is the smallest quantity.
	In this legislation we have a problem not only with definitions but with suggestions that we break up things in a way in which most people do not in the normal course of their life and which they might find quite difficult. We must have practicable, workable schemes. The scheme in Wandsworth to which I referred is quite practicable and workable. If you take all the other items that I have not included in the list in the back of your car down to the rubbish collection area, you can dispose of your garden rubbish, batteries and all the other things in separate containers. It is very efficient, and it works quite well.
	I hope that we will not be running a scheme that forces the ordinary citizen, including the old-age pensioner, to start worrying about what they put into the container in their kitchen where the balance of their rubbish goes. Let us be practicable about the schemes.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I found the debate extremely interesting, and a thought leapt into my head that I wish to share. A couple of times now, we have spoken about what to do when the wife is not around to help you with your cooking and how that might promote the need to recycle fast food canisters and so on. The Government are soon to encourage the introduction of basic cookery lessons for all children at school, including boys, and part of good cooking is about learning how to make lovely, appetising food out of left-overs. I am reminded by my noble friend that it is never too late to learn to cook and that it can be a creative and rewarding experience, even for older men in their retirement. That is something that some Members of the Committee may be interested in. I am sure that there is an all-party group on cooking somewhere that we could get going. I am not being flippant. Certainly, my mother and grandmother knew how to make the most amazing food, almost out of nothing sometimes, and it is a skill that young people would do well to acquire.
	The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, prompted this interesting discussion. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 5 places a small number of conditions on waste-collection authorities when introducing a waste-reduction scheme. That is to ensure that schemes do not have negative social or environmental consequences that are easily avoided, as we discussed on the last group of amendments. On this basis, we require authorities to take account of groups that are unduly disadvantaged; to have in place a fly-tipping prevention strategy; and to offer all residents a good recycling service. However, it is most important that local authorities have enough flexibility to run waste-reduction schemes in the way best suited to their area. We do not want to impose conditional restrictions on them that do not necessarily deliver materially different outcomes.
	Amendment No. 183J would require that an authority had a successful fly-tipping prevention strategy in place before setting up a waste-reduction pilot; and the first part of Amendment No. 183K states that the fly-tipping strategy must meet the standards set out in guidance by the Secretary of State. It is nice to hear the noble Lord proposing adherence to guidance issued by the Secretary of State because often I find myself having to give reasons why the Secretary of State should be allowed powers to issue guidance. I wholly support the need for all local authorities to take strong and effective action on fly-tipping. I am sure that the Committee will agree with that. That is why we require a fly-tipping prevention strategy to be in place before a scheme is set up.
	I know that it is obvious to say, "How do you know that there is a scheme set up? You cannot start the scheme before the strategy is there". What comes first, the chicken or the egg? The pilot scheme designation process will also assess the quality of a pilot's fly-tipping prevention plan, and we have identified that as an important step.
	The second part of Amendment No. 183K would require pilot authorities to have in place a strategy that they had agreed with local retailers to minimise packaging. That is an important part of the jigsaw. However, we believe that the levers for bringing about meaningful changes in packaging levels lie primarily at national and international levels, not at a local level. That is not to undermine the efforts that could be made locally, but we do not see the need to include in this Bill reference to our committed work to tackle the packaging issue, which is going on elsewhere in government. We do not feel it necessary to put that in this Bill at this point when we are trying to set up these pilot schemes. We are taking action nationally, and we have already delivered real changes.
	Amendment No. 183L specifies that authorities wishing to introduce waste pilots should provide for kitchen waste to be collected separately. For the purposes of this amendment, we presume that "kitchen waste" means food waste. The Bill already requires participating authorities to provide a good recycling service to households in the scheme. That will be defined in guidance to which authorities must have regard, and we will be looking at the quality of recycling services in designated authorities as pilots.
	Although food waste is an important waste stream to be tackled, the lack of a separate food waste collection does not necessarily denote a poor recycling service. Only 10 per cent of authorities have a food waste collection, and only one out of five of the top recycling councils in England in 2005-06 operated a food waste service. Yet, they all had recycling and composting rates of 50 per cent or more. It is not as straightforward as direct cause and effect, but we are saying that it is important.
	We are talking about giving powers for pilot schemes. You could argue that the more diversity there is in the pilots, the more benefit to policy making in this important area. As the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, said, many components of kitchen waste may best be treated by home composting. It may not be the best environmental option for every authority to collect all kitchen waste separately. Guidance is therefore the right place for detailing the operational aspects of a good recycling service. It can be more readily applied to different types of authority to reflect their different demographies, infrastructure and access to markets for recyclers.
	Amendment No. 183N would make it harder in the long term to change the conditions of the scheme in the light of experience. Once the opportunity to make changes at repeal or roll-out stage has passed, any changes would have to be made via primary legislation. We do not think that that is appropriate. Even though we consider that the conditions are extremely important, and we would not change them lightly, they are already subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, which affords sufficiently strong protection. We need some flexibility because it is important to learn from the pilots and future possible schemes, should they be rolled out more widely, and to put those lessons into practice to the benefit of all. We recognise that we need to work with Parliament on this, and we think that the proposals for the affirmative procedure are appropriate for the type of changes and the level of significance that we are talking about.
	I hope that noble Lords will accept that we see as extremely important issues such as the fly-tipping strategy and kitchen waste. All those factors are tested in pilots, which we are committed to seeing make a real contribution to our knowledge and understanding of how to achieve the overall goal: reducing the waste in landfill and the impact on climate change. I hope, with that, that the noble Lord will consider withdrawing his amendment.

Lord Greaves: I am grateful to the Minister for that full reply. On the last issue, she has almost convinced me that she may be right. The real concern is that the powers might be used in future, if there is a roll-out, to make things less flexible for local authorities and impose more uniformity on the basis of pilots that are flawed because they have not tested all the areas. However, I hear what she says about that.
	On packaging, I was disappointed that she said that the Government did not think local campaigns had much of a role to play. The whole movement in this country against use-once bags, as they are now called, has come from grass-roots campaigns, and there is evidence that that campaign is continuing to build momentum throughout the country. Targeting local supermarkets, particularly if local authorities had powers to do so, could make a huge difference to the amount of packaging waste that people have to throw away. That is one of the main components.
	The question of kitchen waste caused a lot of debate. An increasing number of authorities—the Minister said it was 10 per cent—are collecting kitchen waste. The noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, asked what kitchen waste was: basically, it is food waste that, I hope, cannot be composted in someone's back yard or garden, such as chicken carcases, meat bones, the remains of take-aways that contain gravy and so on. It may be that noble Lords have impeccable recycling and refuse disposal habits and do not chuck away vast amounts of food, but many people do. Earlier the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, referred to the Waste and Resources Action Programme, WRAP, and its campaign called "Love Food, Hate Waste". I have a great press release about it here—I will not treat the Committee to it because it is actually from the Liberal Democrats, not WRAP itself—that says that 6.7 million tonnes of unused food are thrown away each year, about half of which is still edible at the time of disposal. Half of it can be prevented from being thrown away simply by people not wasting food.
	Noble Lords have talked about going back to old habits, such as making soup from left-overs, which some of us do a bit but perhaps not as much as we ought to. Those habits have to return, there is no doubt about that, but then there is still all the residual stuff that can and must be thrown away. If it goes to the right places and is treated by the right processes, which I think would involve quite a lot of heat, it can be turned into compost even if it is not vegetable remains. There is an increasing drive for that. Cambridge City Council does it very well, and friends of mine on Eastleigh Borough Council are introducing it steadily across the borough. Many other councils, including my own, would like to do it and simply cannot afford to or they do not have the facilities in the area; there is no local firm that can treat the waste after it has been collected. More government action on recycling food waste would have a huge impact on what we are talking about here, which is climate change. It is the food going into the tips that causes the methane. What the Government were saying was a bit complacent.
	One noble Lord talked about garbage disposal units. That reminded me that, when I was a kid in our back street in Bradford, we had things called pig bins that stank to high heaven. All the food went in them; then it was taken away and fed to pigs. Nowadays, quite rightly, you could not do that.
	I am grateful for everything that has been said in this debate, and I will read carefully the Minister's remarks. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 183J to 183L not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183M:
	Schedule 5, page 56, line 25, at end insert—
	"( ) Each waste collection authority which makes a waste reduction scheme shall issue a statement with the annual council tax bills setting out the quantities and proportions of the different recyclable materials that have been collected, the means by which they have been re-used and recycled, and the locations in which they have been re-used and recycled."

Lord Greaves: I will be very brief on this one. The amendment proposes that each waste collection authority which makes a waste reduction scheme shall issue an annual statement with the council tax bills—it does not really matter when they are issued—to say where the recycled material ends up. We talked earlier about the fact that some of it goes to China, which may be a good or a bad thing; then again, it may not be, because it is going in the empty containers that bring toys from China. Whatever the arguments are, there is a real interest from the people who make the effort to recycle in their area to know where the recycling ends up and whether it is somewhere sensible and practical. This is a matter of good practice that all local authorities should carry out, and the purpose and I move the amendment merely to highlight that. I beg to move.

The Duke of Montrose: We in some ways support the principle of the idea, but could it be done without too much tedious detail, which would probably defeat the purpose?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: This is a very interesting amendment. I shall try to be quick in responding. As I have said three times, we have placed a small number of conditions on introducing a waste reduction scheme, which are aimed at making sure that schemes are fair and effective. However, it is important to keep the number of conditions to a minimum to avoid overprescribing from the centre and unnecessarily adding to local authority costs. While communications are key to the success of any waste reduction scheme, it is an area where guidance for local authorities, rather than extra legislative requirements—which may be heavy-handed—is appropriate.
	Amendment No. 183M would require authorities that run a waste reduction scheme to send out a statement on what recyclables are being collected and in what quantities, and how and where the material is reused or recycled. While we agree that this information may be of interest to local residents, it should ultimately be a matter for the local authority to decide whether, when and how to publish it. There are many creative ways in which local authorities could, if they wanted to, go about communicating that information. They could perhaps do it through their websites, which would not create the need to recycle more paper and provide an opportunity for much information to be made available. However, as I have said, we in any case intend to cover effective communications in our guidance to local authorities. We will consult formally on guidance. It is not appropriate to put a requirement in the Bill. I hope that, having heard those undertakings, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

Lord Greaves: I am grateful for those comments. It was a kite-flying amendment. The answer to the question of the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, is that local authorities all know where their waste goes. If they do not, they are failing in their duties to make sure that it goes somewhere useful. Some authorities are not too happy to publicise that information because they are not proud of where some of it may go. The more this is out in the open, the better, but the Minister is right: it should not be in the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 183N not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183NA:
	Schedule 5, page 56, leave out lines 34 to 36

Lord Greaves: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 183P, 183Q and 183S, which are in the same group. We move on to charges and issues relating to them. Amendment No. 183NA is a probing amendment. The Bill states:
	"The scheme may provide for the incentive to be provided ... by means of rebates from council tax or by other payment, or ... by means of charges under paragraph 4 or 5".
	The charges under paragraphs 4 and 5 are fairly clear and straightforward. They involve providing containers. One charges £1 a bag, or whatever it happens to be, or one charges more if they have a larger quantity of waste—I presume that they would be sent a bill for that. However, if one is talking about rebates from council tax, one is opening a can of worms. I presume that the rebate would have to be calculated over a period and then be rebated from council tax at some point in the future. How much delay would there be before one could rebate the council tax—council tax bills are sent out before the end of a financial year? Would the period be relatively short, or would the rebate be calculated for the month, every three or six months, or the whole year? How will one deal with that in areas where there is a substantial turnover of population? One could be in the position of paying rebates, or perhaps imposing penalties, on people who would be long gone. That would not seem to be an efficient way of going about it. Even in relatively stable neighbourhoods, the turnover of population can be 5 or 10 per cent a year, as those of us who are interested in the registers know.
	Providing incentives via the council tax seems to require substantial additional bureaucratic systems, which will require money to be set up in the first place. It is not clear from where that will come if it does not come from the Government's £4.5 million, and it is not clear how it will work. I look forward to what the Government say. I suspect that such schemes will turn out to be far too complex, and that any council which wants to go in for the pilots will go for the much easier option of charging per bin or bag. It is a probing amendment.
	Amendment No. 183P suggests that rebates and charges apply only to people in the scheme. With the balancing-out system that the Government are proposing, the charges on some people may be balanced out by the benefits to others—in the short run at least, that is not a problem. The real problem arises if it applies only to some people in the local authority district, the costs of administering it are not taken into account in the calculations and everybody pays them. Unless those setting-up and administrative costs are paid for by the Government through the grants, which I presume would not be possible following a rollout, or unless they are being balanced by savings in waste disposal charges and perhaps in the frequency of collection if the system works really well—it is clear that that will not happen initially and will take some time, even if the systems are wonderfully successful—they must be taken into account. The amendment probes how far people will have a financial imposition made on them for the benefit of others when they are not taking part in the scheme.
	Amendment No. 183Q probes the meaning of the words,
	"person by whom any charge is payable",
	because I do not understand them. I would like an explanation. I beg to move.

Earl Cathcart: There seems to be an acceptance that everyone covered by a scheme will use all of it. It is quite conceivable that there are houses that do not use glass bottles. Tins, too, are not always part of the larder, except for emergencies that rarely occur. Most of all, there are many houses, particularly in the rural areas, where food waste, grass cuttings, fallen leaves and the like are an important ingredient of the compost heap. Are such people to be charged for something which they will not use?
	Amendments Nos. 183Q and 183S refer to sub-paragraphs whose explanation, in the Explanatory Notes, is simply a repetition of the wording in the Bill. The person liable for any charge would be the householder, so we agree that these subparagraphs should be removed, unless the Minister can give examples of other persons who might be liable under various schemes.

Lord Rooker: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for discussing charging. I regret that my reply will be a bit longer than his opening speech but it is important to put the issues on the record. I think that I will be able to satisfy him and it is important that we get the correct message across to those outside.
	As he said, paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of Schedule 5 deal with charges and rebates for households under a waste reduction scheme. The key element of any scheme is that households throwing away the least residual, non-recycled waste will receive a rebate from the local authority, so there is an incentive there. As I said earlier, in some schemes, households throwing away most could pay more. I emphasise the word "could". There are different methods for local authorities to implement charges and rebates; they could offer rebates from council tax or by other payments to those producing least waste.
	It is worth putting on the record that over last summer there was a large consultation on this whole issue, as I said. During the consultation local government specifically asked the Government to consider linking charges and rebates to council tax as an option because it thought that it could reduce administration costs in certain circumstances. Therefore, the measure could be potentially advantageous for householders. Also local government thought that it might be easier for householders to understand the connection between the two issues. As I say, local government specifically requested the option of linking charges and rebates to council tax. However, it is not our preferred way. We want councils to have more flexibility to suggest systems with the option of linking them to council tax. Under paragraphs 4 or 5, they could charge in relation to numbers of waste sacks, sizes of bin or the amount of waste—I presume this is its weight—being thrown away, or they could operate,
	"any combination of those means".
	That is a very important provision at paragraph 3(2)(b), which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did not read out. He read out only part of the paragraph. Therefore, there is maximum flexibility for local authorities to design a scheme. They will be free to integrate rebates and charges within the council tax system, if they wish to do so. That is the key message.
	Amendment No. 183NA would remove a provision which allows local authorities to provide for an incentive by means of charges under paragraphs 4 and 5 of Schedule 5, or by any combination of those means. The power to charge, combined with a duty to pay out an equal amount in rebates, is an essential part of these proposals. As I said, revenue neutrality is very important. People should not think that this is a stealth tax or another impost on the community. The positive effects of charging on waste minimisation and recycling have been demonstrated on occasion abroad. I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made earlier. I do not want to make commitments on which I cannot deliver but I shall do my best to find out if any such schemes have been introduced abroad and have failed. It is important to learn lessons from others. It is useful to learn from success but it would be useful to know about schemes that have failed, even those that were tweaked and failed. As I say, the positive effects of such schemes have been demonstrated. I gave the example of the town in Sweden where the introduction of charging saw levels of residual, non-recycled waste fall by nearly 50 per cent and recycling rise by almost 50 per cent in the first year alone. We believe that our proposals for charging and rebating provide authorities and the public with a comparable incentive. I know that it is a probing amendment but we do not therefore support the amendment to remove the power to charge. Technically speaking, to assist the noble Lord in drafting, Amendment No. 183NA would be unsuccessful in removing the power to charge as it has no practical effect. Local authorities would still be able to provide rebates under paragraph 3(1) and charge under paragraphs 4 and 5. So we think the current drafting is preferable. It makes clear that incentives can be provided through rebates, charges in relation to receptacles or amounts of waste, or any combination of those means. These are all crucial to authorities. That is a very important point.
	Amendment No. 183P would require that rebates and charges should apply only to occupiers of households covered by the scheme. Theoretically, this would prevent the extreme case arising of an authority collecting charges from one specified group of residents and deciding to make all the rewards available only to another specified group. However, as the noble Lord implied, this approach would have such obvious risks and downsides that it is extremely unlikely that the situation would ever arise. A special provision in primary legislation is therefore not necessary. We would not expect to see it in the pilots, where the process of being designated by the Secretary of State provides a further assurance.
	We also wish to resist Amendment No. 183P to allow authorities to deal effectively with everyday situations where, for example, someone moves out of the area. The local authority may still wish to collect charges owed by them, or give them rebates they have earned, even though they are now living in an area outside the scheme. This is a necessary local authority discretion that the current drafting allows. It is again a matter for the local authority.
	Amendments Nos. 183Q and 183S would remove powers for authorities to decide who in a household is responsible for paying a waste charge or receiving a rebate. This again would mean that the authorities, though empowered to design and implement a scheme for householders, would not be empowered to say who in that household could get a rebate or receive a charge. Though we are keen to make sure that schemes are as fair as possible—that is why we have put in place key provisions, such as the protection of disadvantaged groups—we do not want to create unnecessary administrative burdens for local authorities that achieve very little in practice. These amendments would create administrative difficulty and costs for local authorities. They would, for example, not be able to ensure that people moving in or out of the area pay only what they owe, and receive all the rebates they have earned, in the same way as for utility bills when people move house. This is a common occurrence. Tens of thousands of people move home on a regular basis. It is normal practice to calculate the relevant amounts with regard to utility and council tax bills. Therefore, this would be an unnecessary restriction preventing authorities from collecting the money they are owed by residents.
	We believe in giving authorities flexibility to suit the conditions. The noble Lord raised some extreme cases which we would not expect the pilot to come across. As I said, we have the safeguard that the local authority pilot will be approved by the Secretary of State. We will be working with local authorities and the public in producing practical guidance for authorities and guidance on appeals processes to ensure that fair schemes are put in place. We do not want to impose an unnecessary administrative burden but we want the measure to be fair.

Lord Greaves: I am extremely grateful to the Minister for that long explanation. This is one of those occasions when we have to say, quite genuinely, that we will read it in Hansard, try to understand what it means and consider our position further.
	I have one or two further comments on the whole question of charging and these amendments. The Minister appeared to say that there could be instances where people were due rebates for the period when they were living in a property, behaving themselves, not putting much stuff out and therefore getting all their brownie points, but if they moved away they did not have to be paid, even if the authority knew where they were. That does not seem to be equitable. If people have earned a bonus of, for example, £20 or £30, why should they not be paid it along with everybody else? I think there are limits on how far flexibility can be taken in this when people will believe that they are owed that money.
	That leads to my second question on whether people who move away can be chased for any money that they owe. From reading the documents that the Government have produced I understand that the amounts that people could get from this in benefit, or in bounties, or which they owe because they have not been recycling properly, might be quite low. I assume that there will be a de minimis so that people will not be sent bills for £1, but where is a sensible level? If the level that is being talked about is under £100 per year—it might be £20, £30 or £40—what are the administrative costs for an authority of chasing people for that money? It seems that the difference between that and utility bills is that utility bills are usually higher than £20, £30 or £40 and often a great deal higher nowadays. That is the case with council tax generally. One of the problems underlying the proposals is that the amounts of money being talked about are not high. Administrative costs in relation to them might be a serious problem.
	Finally, the Minister said that potential cases in extreme would not be expected to be seen in the pilots. That goes back to one of our fears that the pilots will be in easy areas and the difficult problems that we all know are going to be there. If the pilots are going to be worthwhile we have to tackle some of the difficult problems. Perhaps not the most extreme ones, but if it does not tackle difficult inner city areas, difficult council estates, other difficult areas or far-flung rural areas it is not going to be of any value, but that goes back to the point that we made earlier.
	As I said, I will read carefully what the Minister said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 183P not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183PA:
	Schedule 5, page 56, line 38, leave out from beginning to end of line 8 on page 57

Lord Greaves: This is clearly a probing amendment. It would take out a great chunk of the Bill. I am not seriously proposing to do that, but the amendment gives us an opportunity to have some discussion over the way that volume-based schemes might work. As I understand it, the two types of volume-based schemes being considered are different sizes of bins—big bins and little bins—or charging people per sack. I am not clear about whether charging people per sack will always be on the basis of selling people the sack, which they are allowed to fill up and put out, and therefore the number put out will depend on how many sacks people have bought, or whether people will have a variable number of sacks and the charge will be on the basis of how many they put out at any given time and therefore they will have to be counted as the collection takes place, in the same sort of way that counting will take place on weight-based schemes. Some clarification might be helpful.
	It would be easy for people to order a little bin when they need a big bin. It seems that there will be a great incentive for people to say that they will make do with a little bin but it will not cater for their needs and then there will be the problems of what they have to do with the waste that is left over and the sort of problems that in many areas will occur with weight-based schemes: people will either put them in someone else's bin, which if people have already paid for that bin might not be a huge problem, but again will lead to neighbour disputes, or alternatively they will get rid of it in some other way and put it in the backyard of an empty house or on a piece of waste land.
	We are having an increasing problem of people putting black bags in ordinary litter bins. The council in its wisdom thought that having a big increase in the number of litter bins was a wonderful idea to help keep the place tidy, but people are stuffing their black bags into litter bins. If they are clever and do not put incriminating material in; that is, material that identifies the people doing it, it is difficult to stop them. There are many associated problems. The Minister will say that that is what pilots are for, but it is right that we should consider some of the problems before they happen, not least because it may be the last ever time that we can do that.
	From all the material that the Government have produced I have no feeling for how much they think sacks might be sold for. Are we talking of a minimal level, such as 10 pence, or are we talking of a significant level, like the Maastricht example, which is one of the success stories that the Government are talking about, where they are 75 pence—a euro—at the moment? If they are ordinary plastic sacks and they are identified only by having words or a logo on them I can see people doing well with a black market in them. I can see that growing up quickly and the whole system will break down. I look forward to what the Minister has to say about the way in which volume-based schemes might work. I beg to move.

Earl Cathcart: In the spirit of this being a probing amendment, charges to receptacles provided for homeowners, tenants and others to sort their rubbish into is in our view fraught with difficulty and probable dissension. There are, for example, those who will not use the things because they do not have the rubbish of the kind indicated and those whose health or age render them incapable of the work involved. Has there been discussion with local authorities that have already instituted the separation of domestic waste? I believe that councils provide the bins free of charge and the only rule is that they may not be overfilled. I understand that in large parts of towns the system works without difficulty.

Lord Rooker: The noble Lord has raised an issue relating to the ways in which local authorities might be able to charge. I want to reinforce—at the price of repetition, but it is absolutely the case—that the money raised in charges would be used to pay back rebates to residents. We want to be are able to pilot a wide variety of schemes. Paragraph 4 allows authorities to run schemes where people might buy sacks or pay more for bigger bins. The schemes would encourage householders to reduce the volume of the waste they throw away as opposed to recycling.
	Similar receptacle-based schemes are operating successfully overseas, both in Europe and in the United States. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, mentioned the sack-based scheme in Maastricht, where there was a phenomenal increase in waste separated for recycling, from 45 per cent up to 65 per cent. We want to give authorities the freedom to trial these sorts of schemes here. Paragraph 5 allows authorities to charge in relation to the amount of waste produced. This could be done by weighing or measuring the volume of waste, for example.
	As set out in the consultation paper, we would also like the legislation to allow for charging according to how often residents have their waste collected. We would like authorities to have the power to charge in relation to tags—which answers the noble Lord's question about the sacks—which would need to be attached to sacks of waste. So there are a number of options here, and during the Bill's passage, although I cannot say in this House, we may bring forward amendments to clarify the situation.
	Amendment 183PA would remove paragraph 4—a blockbuster option—and therefore the option for schemes to charge in relation to waste receptacles, bins or sacks. As I have explained, we think that the option is necessary. It gives powers to authorities to run the schemes, which have a proven track record overseas. I am not a world traveller, but overseas cities and rural areas are not too dissimilar to ours, particularly in the European Union. The noble Lord referred to schemes that are operating with bins for food waste and green waste up and down the country, quite successfully to the best of my knowledge. Local authorities are involved. I do not know how many authorities are involved in food waste collection, for example, but we are piloting quite expensive schemes—running to several millions of pounds—around the country using small-scale anaerobic digesters fed by kitchen waste and green waste collected by the local authority. They are very much experimental but such experiments need a few million pounds of capital investment. Work is under way, but it is up to the local authorities. I do not want to pre-empt—nor should we try to do so—what aspect of it the local authority seeks to charge for in respect of getting a buy-in from its residents so that it can organise rebates and charges. That will be different in different areas, which is the beauty of the pilots.

Lord Greaves: I think that was helpful, and I thank the Minister for his reply. He mentioned anaerobic digestion, which I forgot to mention earlier when we talked about food waste. That may be an important way forward, providing not just a means of disposing of food waste but one that is commercially viable and resulting in good quality compost.
	The Minister referred again to the fact that money raised from people who do not behave themselves will go to those who do, and that the scheme will be revenue neutral. He is not saying where the administration and set-up costs will come from. We understand that on the pilots some of that money may come from part of the £4.5 million, but there is no guarantee of that. I think that that is a reasonable summary of what the Minister said earlier. If that is the case, and the set-up and at least the initial administration costs are not covered by government grants, the pilot schemes will have to find extra resources. They will have to find extra capital funds for set-up costs and extra revenue for administration costs. Therefore, it will not be revenue-neutral. It will be paid for by everybody who pays council tax in the area. Those who have nothing to do with the scheme and are not part of it will be paying towards it. We need to understand that revenue neutrality is superficial; it is between those who get a bonus because they are saving on putting out waste, and those who are charged because they put out too much.
	I do not think that we have heard how much it might cost a litter collection authority to carry out a pilot on whatever scale. The information has not been provided. Until we have it, we do not have an adequate basis on which to judge whether the pilots should take place at all. If there is a general rollout, one assumes that there might be a nominal increase in the council's revenue support grant, but one can assume that there will not be dollops of money for every council that wants to roll it out. Local people will have to pay for it. I do not see how that can be regarded as revenue-neutral. It will require an increase in council tax or a reduction in services to pay for it. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Earl Cathcart: moved Amendment No. 183PB:
	Schedule 5, page 57, leave out line 4

Earl Cathcart: The three amendments in this group are also probing amendments. I shall speak first to Amendments Nos. 183PB and RA.
	If charges for the provision of receptacles for holding residual domestic waste and for collecting that waste are higher than the related costs, the population affected will regard it as another form of council tax. Should such charges not meet the costs, the population will see that some members of society are being subsidised while others are not. There is already a debate about whether householders should pay any extra for providing their rubbish ready-sorted for the council. The imposition of a charge greater than the cost of the provision will not add general support to the introduction of these schemes even if there is a counter-council tax rebate.
	Under sub-paragraph 4, which would be deleted by Amendment No. 183QA, it appears that an authority would be allowed to charge for providing a rubbish bin under the Environmental Protection Act, and to charge under the aegis of a waste reduction scheme. Will the Minister please explain the purpose of that, or have I misunderstood? Will he further tell us whether the sum will be levied on a one-off basis or whether the intention is that the authority will in effect rent the receptacles to householders through a repeated charge? I beg to move.

Lord Rooker: I hope that I can answer the noble Earl's questions. Because our debates get compartmentalised, I always feel that I have to say on every group of amendments that the schemes are not intended to raise revenue for local authorities—nor are they related to the cost of the service, by the way. This is fundamental to the process. The aim of the waste reduction charge is to incentivise people to throw away less. That is what it is about. All the money paid to an authority would have to be paid back out again as a rebate. The Government have not changed the way in which local authorities are funded to deliver waste services. As a result of the recent local government settlement, authorities are fully funded from 2008 to deliver waste services through a mixture of central government finance and council tax. There is no incentive for an authority to increase the charge beyond the level needed to affect behaviour. Evidence from Europe suggests that an incentive of about £30 to £50 can be effective in changing behaviour.
	As has been said, we are dealing with relatively small sums of money, and the Government retain a reserve power to cap the level of the charge, by the way. The deletions suggested by Amendments Nos. 183PB and 183RA appear to be intended to provide that any charge would need to be related to the relevant authority's costs, which would not be the desired effect. Together, the amendments would create legal uncertainty on how an authority could choose to set its charges under the scheme, in other words whether they should be linked to costs. This uncertainty would put local authorities off from applying to conduct pilots. This would limit our ability to select good quality schemes.
	As I have already said, the intention of the schemes, and any charges and rebates under them, is to incentivise householders to change the way in which they consume and dispose of goods. Charges are therefore not intended to raise revenue for the authority, nor should they be related to the cost of services. Waste services continue to be funded through a mixture of central government and local tax. By seeking to recover costs, Amendment Nos. 183PB and 183RA would undo this well established arrangement. The last local government settlement was only a few months ago. The aim of Amendments Nos. 183PB and 183RA may be to offer protection against the excessively high charges being levied. We believe the draft clauses already provide sufficient protection against this scenario. To start with the Secretary of State will be able to assess the suitability or otherwise of the proposed charges by the designation process and the legislation allows the Government to cap the payments if necessary.
	Even without these constraints, there would be no incentive for local authorities to impose charges beyond what is necessary to incentivise behaviour, because all the revenue must go back to the residents. There is no bypass for local authorities to seek to use an excuse about raising more money, let us say, from those who they say are not co-operating and are throwing lots away, because whatever they charge, even if it is disproportionate and not be related to their costs, has to be paid back to the residents, so there is no way they can do it as a revenue-raising mechanism. We are not talking about large sums of money. From the evidence in Europe, not from the evidence here, £30 to £50 can cause a change of behaviour.
	On the noble Earl's final point, I fully understand why the Amendment No 183QA is there. It is a complicated area and I am going to stick to the words I have in front of me. I think this is important. Amendment No. 183QA has no legal effect, but it would take away a useful clarification that charges under a waste reduction scheme are different from charges under Section 46 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Under this section, authorities may charge for waste receptacles. The provisions in this Bill, as drafted, confirm that the new waste powers are different. Waste legislation is a complex area and because of this we want to avoid creating additional confusion. We think it is important to minimise uncertainties for those implementing the pilots as well as those participating in them. Clarifying that a distinction does exist between our new powers in this Bill and those already contained in previous legislation assists in the process. That is why we cannot accept that amendment, but I realise that the noble Earl asked this for a different reason. I hope I have satisfied him.

Earl Cathcart: I thank the noble Minister for explaining, on Amendments Nos. 183PB and 183RA, that it is not a revenue-raising exercise and emphasising that the charging is to incentivise people's behaviour towards how they consume and dispose of their goods. I think I will have to read Hansard tomorrow to fully understand the response on Amendment No. 183QA, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 183Q and 183QA not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183R:
	Schedule 5, page 57, line 14, after "amount" insert "by weight"

Lord Greaves: I thank the Conservatives for moving the last amendment, which gave me a few moments out of the Chamber. I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 183R and 183T in the group. There are some Conservative ones in the group as well, covering much the same ground. The first amendment here gives us an opportunity to discuss weight-based schemes. I am proposing that when the Bill says that the,
	"charge under this paragraph ... must be related to the amount of residual domestic waste",
	it should say "by weight", to make absolutely clear that this is a weight-based scheme; I am not sure it is otherwise. This is the sort of scheme which has given rise to a great deal of controversy in various tabloid newspapers and elsewhere, when people discovered that, in many places, the wheelie bins, which are in existence and use already, actually have a little chip in them. All sorts of amazing stories went round about the ability of this chip to do all kinds of things, such as analysing exactly what was in the bin as well as magically weighing it and telling who was putting stuff in and out.
	Clearly it is much simpler to identify whom the bin belongs to, so that it can be weighed as it goes on to the lorry; the chip will say which address the bin belongs to. However, even that greatly simplified scheme seems slightly fantastical and unlikely to take off in many parts of the country. I see how it can work practically in suburban areas where each house has a driveway and a gate and where the bin is identifiable not only by its chip but physically and geographically as belonging to a particular property. In many areas of the country, however, where wheelie bins work well, this is not the case. There are communal collection points at the end of the street or another designated place; everyone has to put their bins there, the bins are collected together and you take your bin back.
	In those circumstances, and even in areas where perhaps a bin is placed outside someone's backyard behind a terraced block or in areas of flats where the bin might have some geographical identification, there will be a huge temptation, if you are charged by the weight of stuff in the bin, to put your stuff in someone else's bin. This will happen all the time. People laugh when you say that, but it already happens. Because the council will take only what is in the bin and the lid has to be down for the bin to go on the vehicle, people put their rubbish into someone else's bin. It is usually done with the neighbour's consent. People do not mind as long as the rubbish has been packed in a nice, neat and clean way; it is a sensible way in which neighbours can organise the rubbish. However, if you are being charged for it, all mayhem will be let loose. Any council that goes in for this kind of scheme needs to be certified. I would like to hear from the Government where and how they think that this kind of scheme can possibly work. As I said, because this scheme has been put forward as the one that is likely to take place, it has already discredited the whole idea of charging.
	Amendment No. 183T was tabled to probe the whole question of charging in advance. When people move, can they come back to the council for a rebate? Would that be worth while if the rebate is only £25? The idea of an estimate on account or in instalments seems a nightmare of bureaucracy—an additional system of accounting and charging that councils could well do without. That amendment is essentially the same as the one tabled by the Conservatives, who might like to go into this in more detail. I beg to move.

Earl Cathcart: On Amendment No. 183R, we are not in favour of charging at all. Some existing schemes work in that rubbish is sorted before the binmen get to it. The success or otherwise of the recycling part of the exercise is nothing to do with the householder. We are aware that sufficient recycling facilities are not yet available to deal with all the sorted rubbish that is coming in voluntarily to collection centres. In the circumstances, we feel that it is premature to impose much detail on the nature of the schemes that waste authorities may choose to use.
	The next three amendments, two of which are ours, cover the same ground. Our Amendments Nos. 183TA and 183TB are probing. They are linked but relate to two different aspects of the charge payments. The first deals with payments in advance. The imposition of an advance charge based on an estimate of the waste that is likely to be collected raises a number of questions. Who will do the estimate? What data will be used as a basis for that estimate? Will there be any opportunity to appeal either the estimate of quantity or the level of advance charge? New paragraph 9 in Schedule 5 refers only to the right of appeal against the,
	"liability to pay a charge".
	Will arrangements be made to accommodate those who are not in a position to pay in advance?
	Our second amendment deals with payments on account or by instalment. Where the waste collection authority operates through the council that collects the local council tax, will charges for residual domestic waste collection be separated from the council tax? If that is the intention, will the householder receive separate bills requiring separate payments? If, however, the charge is to be collected as part of the normal council tax, what is the purpose and meaning behind new paragraph 5(4)(b), which allows for payment on account or by instalment?

Baroness Byford: I support my noble friend's amendments and sympathise with those of the Liberal Democrats. I hope that, when she comes to respond, the Minister will tell us a little more about what the Government envisage being the actual amount to be charged on. There are many different schemes. One is based on weight, which I think is quite a good suggestion and would encourage people to recycle bottles, for example.
	On our amendment on payment in advance, it would be helpful for the Minister to explain why the Government have chosen that line rather than paying after the amount has been collected. That is not explained in the Bill and it would seem sensible to judge it at that time. Bearing in mind that, in many areas of the country, 25 per cent of the population moves every four years, a lot of people will be moving into houses. If you are basing the scheme on payment in advance and you do not know who will be living there and therefore how much rubbish or waste there may be, it is quite difficult. I am intrigued as to the thinking behind that and why it is proposed in the Bill.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: All this talk about one's bins outside one's house makes me feel very homesick, when I think about walking up my garden path and seeing my lovely bin and my recycling stuff outside. I hope that I will be able to see it this evening at some point.
	On the question of charging for bins, I pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, about people's behaviour: that once the pilot comes into force, everyone will start putting all their stuff into everyone else's bin. We need to give people slightly more credit than that. It is possible, through a pilot, to make available lockable bins, should people want to access them. In schemes that have already been up and running overseas, that has been an option. The lockable bins have not been very expensive; I think that the equivalent here would be about £3. Take-up of lockable bins has been very low. We need to be careful about pre-empting the findings of the pilots. The whole point of this is coming up with incentives for people to change their behaviour. I do not accept the noble Lord's analysis.
	I hope that I can answer the significant points raised in what has been an important and useful discussion. New paragraph 5 allows authorities to charge in relation to the amount of waste produced. That could be done by weighing or measuring the volume of waste, as the Committee is aware. Under those sorts of scheme, data on how much people throw away may not be available for some time. In addition, it is neither effective for changing behaviour nor fair to residents for the authority to wait for months and months before beginning to collect any charges or pay out rebates.
	We are talking about a scheme to change behaviour. Obviously, it will depend on what works in the pilots, but there must be a link between cause and effect. If people have to wait a very long time to see the cause and effect on charging, local authorities would benefit from the option of handling the charging differently. Instead the local authority should be able to use existing sources of information to estimate how much waste different households will throw away. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, made a point about people moving. People do move and obviously an effective scheme will be able to deal with that fact. Assessments of likely waste produced will have to be done much more often, I would think, although the pilots may prove me wrong. But payments would be adjusted as necessary in future rounds of the schemes to fit with actual amounts of waste produced. This is exactly how utility bills work. Similarly, local authorities working closely with their communities should have the flexibility to determine how payments are made. This will enable them to administer the scheme efficiently. This is why we want to give them powers in new paragraph 5 of the schedule to specify payment methods.
	Amendment No. 183R would specify that charging for the amount of waste meant charging by weight. In fact, charging for amounts of waste could cover more possibilities than simply charging by weight. For example, it could mean charging in relation to the volume of waste—we have talked about large bins and mini-bins. This provides an important flexibility for local authorities that reflects the diversity of systems across the country. Similar schemes are operating successfully overseas, in both Europe and the United States, and we want to give local authorities the freedom to trial them here. It is important that we are able to pilot a wide variety of schemes to see what works well in different areas.
	Amendment No. 183T would remove the possibility for estimating waste levels in advance and billing households accordingly. It would also prevent the authority from requiring, even after the event, payments on account or by instalment. Amendment Nos. 183TA and 183TB together have the same effect as Amendment No. 183T. We know from consulting with local authorities that being able to bill in advance or specify payment on account or by instalment could be very important for administering waste reduction schemes effectively. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked about people on low incomes. We have already debated the question of taking into account the needs of disadvantaged groups. I made the point earlier that their needs could be taken into account by varying the arrangements for payment or reimbursement. We are, I hope, talking about changing people's behaviour so that they can receive reimbursement. I hope that would be one of the main effects of these schemes; it certainly would be the effect of a successful scheme. The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, asked who would make the estimates in putting together the arrangements for advanced payments. Of course it would be the local authority. We will come on to appeals in later groups and my noble friend is about to come on to the connection with council tax in the next debate.
	The noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, talked about the need for people to have access to recycling. I have said many times that we do not want to put too many requirements on pilot schemes, but one of the requirements is that they have adequate roadside recycling. We are talking here about giving local authorities the powers that they need to go about billing and, most importantly, reimbursing residents who are part of the schemes in the way which fits most suitably with the needs of their communities and the scheme that they are piloting on our behalf.

Baroness Byford: I am grateful to the Minister for her response but perhaps I may press her a little further. First, I can clearly see the advantage for the authorities that carry out the pilots in being able to bill in advance, but I cannot see the advantage for the consumer. One may well be reimbursed if one operates the scheme sensibly but, for many families, the charge will be made up front and they will not get anything back at the end.
	Secondly, the Minister said that people might have to wait months and months. Perhaps she could tell us how long the Government see the pilots running. I had assumed that they would not run for months and months. Clearly, they need to run for a reasonable length of time so as to come up with something concrete but at the moment it is not clear from the Bill how long that will be. Therefore, looking at this matter from the consumer's of view, the scheme seems to be geared towards helping the local authority much more than the consumer.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. She is absolutely right: we must not allow this to appear to be about helping local authorities rather than their communities. Local authorities are there to serve their communities. Sometimes in Committee, we pore over the detail and tend to forget that the overarching objective is to change people's behaviour. I believe that behavioural change will come with the incentive of reimbursement, and that reimbursement needs to be well managed if the scheme is to be effective.
	On the question of how long the pilots will last, that will be very much up to the local authorities. Obviously, the pilots have to be long enough for them to bed in and for their effects to be properly measured and reported on. However, if they go on for too long, we will all tire of waiting. The question of how long they continue will be decided through the designation process. I think that I have picked up the noble Baroness's points but I apologise if I have not.

Lord Greaves: I am doing my best to scrutinise the Bill in a responsible, sensible and constructive way but, the more I hear about it, the more I think that it is completely bonkers, although I do not blame the Minister for what she is putting forward.
	The noble Baroness talked about disadvantaged groups. In my part of the world, when wheelie bins and recycling came in across a great swathe of the borough all at the same time, it did wonders for neighbourhood cohesion, as the Government might call it, or community spirit, because people mucked in and helped each other to understand the new system. People who had not been talking to each other started to talk to each other, and they started to look after the older residents and so on. It was fantastic. However, if there is an old lady in the street who is thought to be disadvantaged and does not have any rubbish, everyone will put their rubbish in her bin because she will not have to pay, and it will all be done as part of local community cohesion. If people respond to financial incentives and penalties, as the Government claim, they will do so in the way that is best for them. They will fiddle the system, just as people do all the time if they can get away with it.
	Then I wondered what would happen if there was a large family of six or more adults living in one house and they ordered one mini-bin under a system of big bins and little bins. Would the council say, "No, we won't allow you to order one mini-bin; you'll have to have a big one. In fact, if there are six of you, you'll have to have a super-bin". Would the council be able to dictate the size of bin or would people be able to have one little bin? If the latter were the case, I do not know what they would do with the rest of their rubbish. The whole system is open to fiddling.
	The noble Baroness painted a wonderful picture of her recycling system at home, which she felt terribly homesick for. That is because the Minister is a public-spirited citizen who responds well to what I assume is a good system in her borough, as do lots of other people. I come back to the point that we will get more people to recycle and to save waste by putting in systems that they can sensibly operate. A lot of people, especially people as old as us who were brought up after the war, have real guilt and angst about the amount of rubbish that they throw away.
	Lockable bins? Well, okay. On bills in advance, will councils give rebates in advance as well, or will they bill in advance and give a rebate after the event? Is that how it will work? I cannot imagine councils being anxious to send people their rebates and bonuses in advance. We get estimated utility bills, but if we think the estimated bill is out of sync, we read the meter, ring up the utility company, tell it that the bill is wrong and tell it what the number is. It then sends us another bill for less. That is how it works. You will not be able to do that with rubbish. You cannot weigh your own rubbish, or will there be a market for rubbish-weighing scales for everyone? I do not know.
	My final point is that there is a fatal flaw in the argument that on the one hand the initial bills can be estimated on existing sources of information, and that on the other hand the purpose is to change people's behaviour. If you do not send the first bills on the basis of their changed behaviour, the whole system will be brought into disrepute. There is something wrong about sending out the bills on the basis of historical behaviour before people have changed their behaviour. This will not work. I feel really quite grumpy about the debate on this set of amendments, because this is cloud-cuckoo-land stuff. Having said all that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 183RA to 183TB not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183U:
	Schedule 5, page 57, leave out lines 29 to 31

Lord Greaves: In moving Amendment No. 183U, I shall also speak to Amendment No. 183V. I do not know to whom new paragraph 6(2) applies. Does it refer to the council and the people operating the system, or to the people who are subject to the system—the residents? The substantive amendment in the group is another probing amendment on the general duty to collect. Clearly I do not wish to remove that general duty; I merely wish to probe. Is there not a lack of logic here? If people do not operate the system at all, do not pay their bills and continue to behave in a way that the Government think is undesirable by throwing out too much rubbish—if they are the "can't pay, won't pay" type of person whom we had with the poll tax, will that not undermine the whole system? In particular, if the population is transient, if there is a wilful refusal to pay or if it is impossible to track people down in HMOs and so on and the Government say that the rubbish will go on being collected anyway, which clearly it must for health and environmental reasons and for the amenity of the neighbours, will not the whole system be brought to its knees by people not co-operating with it? I beg to move.

The Duke of Montrose: It is quite interesting to see this group of amendments being moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. As he was saying, the collection of domestic rubbish was not begun to make life easier for the inhabitants of individual dwellings. The first urban sanitary Act in England dates back to 1388. It followed the Black Death when the fleas that carried the bacteria lived on the rats that lived on the garbage, so whichever schemes are introduced to raise the proportion of our waste that is recycled, they must never take priority over the regular collection and disposal of rubbish. We are content that the Bill carries a reminder of the civic duty in this context.

Lord Greaves: Can the noble Duke tell us when such legislation was introduced in Scotland?

The Duke of Montrose: Pass.

Lord Rooker: I have now forgotten my punchline. The noble Duke's last point was going to be my opening gambit.
	First, I will answer the question of whether local authorities will still have a duty to collect waste. Yes; all local authorities will have to meet the requirement under existing legislation to collect household waste. In August 2005, Defra advised that waste collection authorities need not collect household waste outside the main receptacle, so long as they had sent out a notice under Section 45 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 setting out the arrangements for presenting the receptacle for waste collection. As at present, if people do not comply with the authority's requirements on presenting waste for collection, they might be subject to a fine or a fixed penalty.
	Under Section 45 of the 1990 Act, authorities have a general duty to collect household waste. Section 46 of the Act gives authorities powers to determine the arrangements for waste collection—the size and number of bags or boxes, and so on. When an authority uses its Section 46 powers to prescribe such arrangements and a resident does not comply with those requirements, an authority has no further duty to collect his waste other than to keep the relevant land clear of litter and refuse. To that extent, we are keeping up the process: there is also a duty on residents who, in the end, could receive a fixed penalty notice for not following some of these rules. It is not a free-for-all to do what you want out there. As the noble Duke said, there is an obvious public health protection.
	I turn to our response to the amendments. Some waste reduction schemes may involve charges for those residents throwing away the most non-recycled waste. In our view, general compliance and non-payment of such charges need not be a significant problem where the local authorities communicate well with residents who understand why they are being asked to pay. I do not want to wind him up, but I had always thought the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, was the epitome of a defender of independent local government. Yet he has shown a distinct lack of confidence in that tonight, bearing in mind that we wish to have discussions with local government. As I said earlier, one facility in the Bill was the request of consultation with local government so that it can choose to do as it thinks best for its area. I hope that it is taking account of one of its champions not exactly sticking up for local government here.
	We will obviously want to look at the issue that the noble Lord raises within the pilots. Clearly, those will have to be brought forward with a business plan and with a communication plan to residents taking full account of the extreme cases that the noble Lord raises. However, it is essential that local authorities have powers sufficient to recover debts in the small proportion of cases where residents fail to pay. Enforcement options would be as for a civil debt, and have broadly similar sanctions as with non-payment of council tax—but, we envisage, without the draconian measures of imprisonment and bankruptcy. I wanted to get that out of the way before we start any other questions.
	Amendment No. 183U would mean that local authorities could refuse to collect waste from a household which has not paid its charge. We do not think this an appropriate response to non-payment and think that the general duty to collect should still apply. That would avoid the situation, as raised by the noble Duke, of residual waste being left to pile up outside as a public health hazard. As I have explained, there are other courses of action for the authority to deal with non-payment, which it is well accustomed to using for, say, some cases of parking fines or for council tax—although not in the extreme position.
	Amendment No. 183V looks to change the wording of the provisions to say that a failure by any person to pay charges that they owe does not affect the authority's general duty to arrange for collection of household waste. Given what I have already said, we do not consider that Amendment No. 183V adds anything to the provisions as they stand and therefore does not add to the Bill one way or the other.
	I have not been asked this, but I shall answer it anyway: how much will it cost an authority to collect debts? We do not hold data centrally on the costs to local authorities of enforcing fixed penalties. In any case, costs will vary according to the nature of the scheme. As a rough comparison, we know that council tax collection costs are about 1.8 per cent of the total yield. That squares as probably the most efficient tax to be collected. I recall that many years ago I was responsible in the other place for organising the opposition to the infamous poll tax and I had to defend the rates. One of the great defences of the rates was that they were so cheap to collect—a penny in the pound. They were cheaper than all the other taxes such as VAT and corporation. But the poll tax did not only cost a fortune to collect; it cost the Government power in office.

Lord Greaves: I will defend myself briefly in a minute. I think that if any local authorities are daft enough to bring in some of these measures, it will cost them their power in office; who knows—we will see. I am grateful for the response, and again I shall read it carefully, especially that on the first amendment.
	There is a difference between using amendments in order to probe how the Government think something is going to work and what one would do if it came to voting in the Division Lobbies. If it came to a vote, I would ask for maximum freedom for the local authorities concerned. Amendments can be a way of probing what the Government mean. They seek to take out a particular clause so that the Minister is, I hope, encouraged—I was going to say forced—to explain the how the Government think something is going to work. When we discussed whether Clause 51 should stand part of the Bill, I said that this may be the only chance anyone gets to go through the Bill in this kind of detail. As long as we get home at a reasonable time tonight, we have a duty to do that. The Commons may or may do it, that is not in our power. The problem is that when the pilots come back and are thought to be successful, the rollout will be by affirmative instrument. We will be able to debate the instrument, but not go through it in detail and certainly not amend it. It is very important that we understand what is in the Bill and how it may work, and it will be set out in Hansard for others to read and pick up on the arguments. It is then up to the Government to win the debate not just in this Chamber, but out in the country.
	Having said that in self-defence against the shocking attack on me by the Minister—I point out, for the record, that that is said with irony—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 183V not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183VA:
	Schedule 5, page 57, line 38, at end insert—
	"( ) In making the calculations under sub-paragraph (1) the waste collection authority shall take into account the administrative and other costs that are attributable to the scheme, including any costs that are offset by any contributions made by the waste disposal authority and the government."

Lord Greaves: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 183W. This goes back to the question of revenue neutrality. We have covered a lot of this so I shall not go over the same ground again. Can the Minister tell us how he thinks this is going to be financed if it comes to a rollout affecting 62 per cent of the households in the country? How on earth can the costs of setting up and administering it, at least in the early days which perhaps will be informed by the pilots, be met? Does he have any views about that?
	The second amendment seeks to scrutinise a bit of the Bill that seems to contradict what the Minister has been saying about how this will always be revenue neutral on the basis of charges made against people being used to provide rebates or bonuses for those who do well. On page 57, new paragraph 7(2) and (3) seems to imply that the Secretary of State may, by order, amend this and change it so that it would not be revenue neutral in the future. Is my interpretation correct and, if it is, would the Minister comment on it?

The Duke of Montrose: Amendment No. 183VA refers to new sub-paragraph (1) and the waste collection authority. It is slightly hard to follow because new sub-paragraph (1) states:
	"the aggregate amount of charges ... must not exceed the aggregate amount of the rebates or other payments".
	It sounds like a closed loop system in which the moneys that are collected from the public will all be recycled, so how the local authority will cover the costs which are bound to aggregate over and above that is an interesting question. I think that is partly what the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is probing for.
	The amendment appears to offer the local authority the possibility of making money by collecting,
	"any contributions made by the waste disposal authority and the government".
	We would like to know what the Government consider will be the outcome on that matter.
	We agree with Amendment No. 183W and that the Secretary of State should not have the power to upset the balance of charges and rebates without first bringing the details and reasoning for it to Parliament.

Lord Rooker: I, too, was worried about that last point. I try to keep ahead of things but I should have asked about Amendment No. 183W this morning. There is a protection in the fact that the affirmative resolution procedure will provide powers to Parliament, and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee would have to be satisfied with the process.
	On revenue neutrality, it is a closed loop, as the noble Duke said. But, as I said in an earlier debate, local authorities could save a lot of money by such a scheme. Leaving aside the incentives and the charges they could save a fortune in landfill costs, for example, which they can keep or use to reduce the council tax overall for everyone in the authority. That is part of the infrastructure. So there are potential savings. The closed loop comes in with the direct charges and the rebates.
	If as a result of getting a change in behaviour of residents the local authorities end up with their costs of disposal being a lot less overall—which we think will be the case—those will be savings to the country at large and would not be counted for or against the individual participants of the scheme. So there is an opportunity there. I am not saying but implying that when local authorities come forward with their proposals for pilots, part of the business case will include the overall savings—in other words, the cost of running the scheme. As I have implied, it is a very small amount of money. I still live in the real world and £4.5 million is a lot of money to me, but in the scale of local government it is only a couple of decimal points when adding up the figures. So the money is there but no decisions have yet been taken on that.
	The revenue neutrality simply means that the local authority does not make a profit out of the residents taking part in the scheme. That is the bottom line so far as the residents are concerned. But if they can see that the local authority is going to save money overall and keep costs down, that has got to be a good thing for those both in and out of the scheme.
	As I have said, the amendment requires the revenue schemes to be neutral so that no profit is made, which is a key element of the pilot schemes that we wish to organise. It is part of the definition of piloting that we may need to alter the way schemes work in the light of experience, but at this stage it is impossible to guess what might happen. That is why we need the powers to amend the various elements of the framework, including, for instance, exactly what conditions local authorities have to meet before running a waste reduction scheme. We need to respond to what comes out of the pilots.
	We want the flexibility to amend the revenue-neutrality condition. In the unforeseen event that we need to make an amendment, as I have said, it would come back to Parliament. The Minister would be given a pretty rough ride if they did not have a good reason for amending it, because it is a key part of the scheme that we want in the pilots.
	Amendment No. 183VA seeks to allow the authorities to use the money raised from waste charges to cover the costs, but that could create an additional burden on local residents who could end up paying more overall to the authority. It could also reduce the amount of money available to reward the householders who were benefiting from the scheme. It would hinder efficient administration if they had less incentive to keep the costs down, and that would not be fair; it would look like a rip-off. On the other hand, if the offsets were greater than the costs incurred, that could result in the savings achieved being passed directly back to the local residents covered by the scheme via the rebate. That might appear to be a good deal for the residents but it would limit the authority's freedom to invest the savings where it chose; for example, in other priority services.
	I have not been misleading. Earlier I said, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, that local authorities could potentially save a lot of money from running such a scheme. Even though the incentives and charges to residents are ring-fenced, there could still be other pots of money for local authorities to save. That money is for the greater good of all ratepayers in that authority.

Lord Greaves: I want to ask the Minister a specific question, so perhaps I can ask that straight away and he can answer it. How is it going to work in two-tier areas, where the county council pays the waste disposal charges and the district council as the waste collection authority—if there are additional expenses in running the scheme, which there clearly will be—will have to pay?

Lord Rooker: That is a good, specific question to which I have a specific answer, although it is not written down here. That will be in the business plan of the pilot programme put to the Government. It is self-evident that if five areas are going to implement a scheme and one of them is a two-tier area, that will require the two-tier authority to come forward with a plan that delineates between the ratepayers for the district and for the county, which is what the noble Lord is referring to. It will be up to local government to come forward with a plan, and I look forward to noting that. That is a legitimate question that would have to be covered in any business plan put forward to central government.

Baroness Byford: I am grateful to the Minister for clarification on that. It is quite likely, or at least I hope it is, that one of the trials will involve that combination of authorities. What happens if two authorities—two counties, for want of a better expression—decide to form a pilot scheme together? Is that possible, or does the Bill as it stands limit pilots to a single authority? I am not quite clear on this. To give a bad example, if Leicestershire decided to do a deal with Nottinghamshire to see if they could achieve better savings by doing it together, would that be possible?

Lord Rooker: That is a brilliant question for which I need some additional advice, and I am not certain whether I will get it. I know there are facilities for this in local government. Three district councils combined their environmental services for food safety—I will not say which ones I think they were, but they were in the south Midlands area—to run a joint service for checking restaurants, pubs and so on. They had a plan—

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: A single waste collection authority.

Lord Rooker: It is a single waste collection authority that would come forward with the plan. That will be a single unit of local government, even if the waste collection authority happens to cover two local authorities. That is probably not an adequate answer. If I get any better particulars, I will write.

Lord Greaves: Waste partnerships were made possible by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act, but that is perhaps a little premature. Some £4.5 million for an ordinary shire district is still a lot of money. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 183W and 183X not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183Y:
	Schedule 5, page 58, leave out lines 23 to 34

Lord Greaves: The amendment would remove a new paragraph on "Separate account to be kept", which instructs waste collection authorities to keep a separate account for the money that they take in from the extra charges for people who throw away too much and hand out to people who throw away less. I do not want to take the provision out of the Bill—it is merely a probing amendment—but wish to ask one or two questions in relation to it. It states that a waste collection authority is to keep a separate account of any rebates, other payments or any charges received. It then states:
	"Any person interested may at any reasonable time and without payment inspect the account and make copies of it or any part of it".
	If they are obstructed, a penalty is incurred. I am not clear about how much detail about individuals such an account would contain. Is it a general account, relating to the amount of money collected and paid out over a period, or would it go down to the level of showing who has had to pay extra charges and who has been given rebates? I do not want to ask any further questions until I receive an answer to that. If the account does not include such individual details, which could be inspected by anybody, I will be happy to withdraw the amendment. If it does include them, I would be concerned about it. I beg to move.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: As we discussed earlier, the requirement for waste reduction schemes to be revenue-neutral is a key element of the proposals. We want to make sure that schemes are transparent for residents. It is essential that they can easily access information about total amounts of charges and rebates. This allows them to feel assured that any revenue collected by authorities is being paid back in full through rebates, thereby fulfilling the revenue-neutrality condition. This is why new paragraph 10 of the schedule requires authorities to keep a separate account of charges and rebates under a waste incentive scheme. It requires that the account is made available for inspection by members of the public. The new paragraph is not about placing extra burdens on local authorities, nor is it about making transparent information about residents that one would not normally expect to be made public. It is about giving residents confidence in the scheme, keeping them motivated to reduce their waste and allowing them access to information that they have every right to see.
	In practice, there is unlikely to be much extra effort involved for authorities in collecting the information. They will need to have the information in place in any event. I do not wish to labour the point, but residents will want to be able to see revenue-neutrality. They will not expect to have their behaviour publicised. The noble Lord has raised an interesting point, but I hope that, following that reassurance, he will consider withdrawing his amendment.

Lord Greaves: I think I have the reassurance I wanted that it will be summary accounts and not detailed individual accounts that could be accessed. Although we are all entitled to see the details of our own accounts, that is a different matter altogether. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: moved Amendment No. 183YA:
	Schedule 5, page 59, leave out lines 15 to 17

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: The purpose of this amendment is to probe what sort of modifications to enactments relating to council tax the Government have in mind. Will they simply make room for two lines on the council tax form, one levying a charge for domestic residual waste collection and the other applying a rebate from the tax as a whole, or will they impose new conditions on the calculation of council tax, its formulation or the way it is levied? I beg to move.

Lord Rooker: This is a legitimate and practical question but unfortunately, at this stage, one to which I do not have an answer. What would a combined council tax and waste bill look like? I have not taken advice on this. I do not know how such a bill is envisaged. There are some possible variants but we want to work further with local authorities on this. I do not know how far the work with local authorities has progressed. We need to assure local authorities and the public that we have the necessary flexibility here and that the information is transparent and straightforward. Residents will demand nothing less. Their behaviour in this regard will change only if they know why they are doing something and what the cost or saving of doing it is. The relevant information must not be buried in a footnote or in the great tranche of leaflets that nobody ever reads that come with your council tax bill. It must be as up front as the information on the police or the fire brigade in two-tier authorities. That is my personal view but I believe it would be very unwise for us not to make it as transparent as that.
	As I said earlier, this flexibility is there only because local government raised this issue during the formal and informal consultation process. A waste disposal authority may well suggest a system that has no connection whatever with the council tax. The system has inbuilt flexibility, which is why I cannot give any indication of what a bill would look like. However, residents must be able to understand it and it must be credible in terms of being no different from what they see in the rest of their bill.
	I have an answer to a point made by the noble Baroness which I hope will be helpful. I am keen to get as much information on the record as I can in Committee as that will help us on Report. One pilot is the area of one waste collection authority but there are two types of relevant authority structure. In the two-tier structure comprising the districts and counties, the district is the waste collection authority. The unitary authorities are the waste collection and disposal authorities but one pilot is the area of a waste collection authority, or part of it. As regards the relationship between the two, particularly in the two-tier structure, we would expect a waste collection authority coming forward as a pilot to be able to demonstrate an excellent working relationship with its disposal authority. That relationship will underpin the success or failure of the pilot.

Baroness Byford: I understand what the Minister has clarified for me and I am grateful for that. However, it still did not quite answer my question—although he did earlier—as to the fact that the Bill constrains the possibility of two wider areas getting together, which might enhance a pilot. Before the Bill finally leaves us, I sow a seed in the Government's mind that it might be advisable for an area to be considered over the border, if you like. You could get greater savings if two came together than if one were considered in one area. However, as I say, I understand and accept the point he clarified and I am grateful for that.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I too am grateful to the Minister for explaining that it was not necessarily possible to give me an absolute answer. I am reassured by the fact that he is determined to make this process practical and transparent. We can ask nothing more of the Government at this stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183Z:
	Schedule 5, page 60, line 5, at end insert—
	"(5) The revocation of a scheme does not affect the duty of the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report under section 53 of the Climate Change Act 2008."

Lord Greaves: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 183ZD and 183ZE in the group. They are about the reports that will come back to Parliament on the pilot schemes that have taken place, assuming that they get that far. The first amendment is to establish that there will be a report back to Parliament on schemes that are halted half way or at some stage during their procedure for whatever reason, stating that:
	"The revocation of a scheme does not affect the duty of the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a report",
	so that if a scheme is set up and is run for a period of time but does not run its course, there will still be a report back to Parliament. The argument is that we want reports back on failures as well as successes.
	The other two amendments in the group take us back to Clause 53 and out of Schedule 5 at last. It is a question of how the reports to Parliament will work, and the two amendments tackle what should be in the reports. In Clause 53 the Government suggest that the reports should contain a description of the scheme, a comparison of schemes and how they differ from each other and,
	"an assessment of the scheme's success or otherwise".
	That wording should be substantially expanded so that the report to Parliament covers the important factors. Amendment No. 183ZD reads,
	"a description of the area in which the waste reduction scheme was operated, including the nature of the properties and households and the social and economic conditions in the area".
	The Minister may say that that is going to happen anyway. If he gives me that assurance, that is better than nothing, but it would be better in my view if it were in the Bill. In Amendment No. 183ZE, I suggest that there should be information about the way in which the scheme is operated, namely,
	"(i) the changes that took place in the quantity and proportion of domestic waste that was recycled;
	(ii) the changes that took place in the quantity and proportion of domestic waste that was collected as residual waste;
	(iii) the problems, if any, that occurred in particular types of properties and households, the measures taken to overcome those problems, and the success or otherwise of those measures;
	(iv) the problems, if any, that occurred as a result of the unauthorised disposal of waste, whether by fly-tipping or otherwise, the measures taken to overcome those problems, and the success or otherwise of those measures;
	(v) an assessment of the extent to which the scheme could be extended to some other areas or generally".
	There may be other things that are necessary to report as well but those are the ones that seem obvious to me.
	There is concern about what is going to happen once the Bill is passed and pilots take place, because once the reports come back it is all in the hands of the Government. We are not talking about another five or 50 pilots. We are talking about a rollout with which the Government hope that they will cover 62 per cent of the country, according to the statistics. That is a big issue. There is concern that the parliamentary scrutiny and decision-making at that stage will not be as deep and effective as it could be. It will be by affirmative instruments. We will be able to debate them; we will not be able to amend them. The number of times that affirmative instruments are kicked out is rightly not often. I propose that it be clearly written, either in these words or in words that the Government prefer, that the report back to Parliament should be clear in analysing how the projects have worked and what success they have had in these areas, and perhaps others, so that if the report is debated—I understand that it will be laid before Parliament and not debated automatically—we will have more information. I beg to move.

Lord Rooker: I do not want to comment on the levels of scrutiny between the two Houses because it varies. There are pluses and minuses in both, but I can think of no other issue that will be gone through in more detail by the elected Members of the House of Commons than the collection of waste by local authorities from their constituents' homes. There is no doubt whatever about the issue being properly scrutinised, if it becomes the policy, at a street-by-street, postcode-by-postcode level. We would not do that in this House because we are not elected and we represent no one but ourselves. The other place will have that information. I am not saying that we should not do it, but I reassure the Committee that no rollout will be done without full parliamentary scrutiny.
	We want Parliament to be involved at every stage of the process in developing our policy on waste reduction schemes. That is why the Secretary of State should report back to Parliament on how each of the parliaments has fared, including any schemes that are later revoked, giving reasons why they have been revoked. We expect that to be rare, but it could happen. The designation process will look carefully at the viability, and we hope that any that cannot last the course would not be designated in the first place, but I am not saying that everything is perfect and that we will get everything right. We have that facility for reporting back. Clause 53 sets out what must be included in the report as a minimum. It was never intended as a comprehensive list. In practice, there are likely to be many other areas, as well as those suggested in the amendment, that we would wish to cover. We do not think that primary legislation is the right place to list every detail of the report but we are keen to discuss its formation with Parliament, the public and local authorities. We want an evidence-based evaluation of the pilots. The lessons from the pilots have to be pretty powerful to inform the decision on whether the power should be made more generally available.
	Amendment No. 183Z would require the Secretary of State to report back to Parliament even on a pilot that had been revoked, but Clause 53 already requires that. Amendment No. 183ZD would require the Secretary of State's report to include information about,
	"the nature of the properties and ... the social and economic conditions in the area".
	To provide a full and useful evaluation, it is likely that we would wish to include other details, for example, background information about the nature of the pilot areas. We note with interest the importance that noble Lords attach to these details, and appreciate that they represent sensible areas for the report to cover, but we do not think that listing such areas of interest is suitable for primary legislation. However, they should form part of the wider debate to take on board for evaluation.
	Amendment No. 183ZE would establish various criteria for assessing the success of the pilot schemes, which are listed in paragraphs (i) to (v). We agree that it will be important to define success criteria and to publish them in advance of the pilot starting. However, we note again with interest the areas flagged by noble Lords as part of the discussion. We may end up with similar criteria to those suggested. It is important to draft the criteria in collaboration with the local authorities and other stakeholders. I do not want to say during the discussions, "By the way, we have decided this at the centre". We shall be having discussions, which is the only reason we would agree with Amendment No. 183ZE, with which we are on board in principle.

Lord Greaves: At this time of night I am fairly satisfied with those answers. They are as good as I had hoped for and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 183ZZA and 183ZZB not moved.]
	Schedule 5 agreed to.
	Clause 52 [Waste reduction provisions: piloting]:
	[Amendments Nos. 183ZA to 183ZB not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183ZC:
	Clause 52, page 23, line 13, at end insert—
	"( ) The period specified under subsection (3) shall be the same in each order which designates a pilot area."

Lord Greaves: I think that my brain is slowing down at this time of night.
	Amendment No. 183ZC is about the length of the period that the five pilots should run for. It suggests that the five—or whatever number of pilots that the Government in the end decide to run—should run at the same period for the purposes of reasonable comparison. That is a fairly simple point; it seems common sense to have them running at the same time for the same length of time to make reasonable comparisons.
	I also want to ask the Minister about the timescale for the pilots. How long is it expected that each pilot will last? Is it possible that there will be a different length of time, even if this amendment were not agreed to? Are we talking about two years, three years or five years? How long is this new system expected to take before the behaviour change that everybody is talking about that will come about? Is it possible that some of them might be open ended—that they might start for two years with the possibility of extending for another year, if that was thought to be the sensible thing to do? I beg to move.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: Both of these amendments concern issues that we feel the Government have not properly covered in the Bill, although I accept that the Minister has tried to cover some of these areas of interest in the answers in the previous debates. At this stage our main concern is to bring our concerns to the attention of the Minister.
	Amendment No. 183ZEA is a probing amendment that is intended to establish the precise cumulative effects of Clauses 52, 53 and 54. Clause 52 starts with a waste collection authority proposing a waste reduction scheme. Clause 52(2) states:
	"Not more than five areas may be so designated".
	This has been interpreted in the Minister's letter 14 January, which states:
	"Up to five waste collection authorities to pilot waste reduction schemes".
	However, I am still uncertain whether this will mean that each authority will be able to pilot a number of schemes, or whether they will be limited to one each. Will there be a time limit imposed after which no further pilots will be allowed? The Explanatory Memorandum does not provide an answer to this point and I would be grateful for further clarification from the Minister.
	Clause 53 requires the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on operations in each pilot area. Clause 54 also allows the Secretary of State to apply the waste reduction provisions generally if he is not minded to alter them. This seems to imply that a scheme could be rolled out nationally without him having to seek approval from Parliament. He will have to use the affirmative procedure only if he wishes to amend a scheme. Perhaps the Minister might correct me if I am wrong in that analysis.
	Clause 54 allows the Secretary of State to take action after he has reported to Parliament,
	"in relation to one or more pilot areas".
	Does this mean that the other pilots may still be running but he does not have to wait for their outcomes? If so, might that result in the choice of a scheme that could shortly be proved to have been bettered by another? The overall picture is of a system that allows the Secretary of State to impose a waste collection scheme nationally after it has been trialled in a limited area or an area that is not necessarily representative of the country as a whole. I am not suggesting that that is the purpose of the clause, but it may be the consequence if the trialling is not cleverly done. Moreover, no time limit is imposed on the duration of the piloting phase, either for each waste reduction scheme or for the whole phase of pilot schemes. Could the latter still be running many years from now, for example?

Lord Dixon-Smith: I have just two further questions, to which I am sure the Minister will have the answer. We will almost certainly find from the pilots that things will work in one area in one way and equally well in another area in a different way, which means that we may want to finish up with two or three different systems across the country. Will that be, as I hope it will, what I would call an allowable result? My second question relates to the fact that a pilot implies a scheme that runs for a limited period, after which you sit down and assess the results. Let us say that a local authority has a successful scheme that is running extremely well and it wants to keep the scheme going. Will the fact that the scheme is a trial mean that at the end of the trial period the authority has to dismantle it, even though it is a success, while the Government sit down and measure the degree of triumph that the authority is enjoying?

Lord Rooker: In the case put by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, I hope that the answer will be no. My caveat is that, if the pilot in that example covered only part of the local authority area, you would not envisage it going on for ever, however successful it was, because then you would have two tiers in that area. The pilot would have to close so that there could be a rollout. I cannot go beyond that.
	The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, picks up a good point. We have never said this, but it is not the case that the reports and evaluations of all five pilots have to be in before a decision is made. However, I want to make it absolutely clear that, although the trigger mechanism is not necessarily with Parliament once the legislation is in force, the Secretary of State has to come back to Parliament to report on at least one of the pilots before any rollout can take place. This cannot be done just by getting the Bill on the statute book, going away, chatting to the local authorities and rolling out the five pilots without coming back to Parliament. Before any action is taken on a rollout, at least one of the pilots has to be reported on to Parliament. That is an extreme case, but once we have the results from three or four of the pilots we may have found a way forward. I do not know—this is not my day job—whether we are envisaging the same thing all over the country; I suspect not, because things are not the same now.
	The amendment is about the pilots all running at the same time regardless of what the individual local authorities want. We need flexibility for local government. In practice, some authorities may want to run the pilot on a council tax year and some may want to run it on a calendar year. Others—this is the example that I have here—may want to introduce a new service in their area, such as a food waste collection service, and will think, "We can link this with the pilot, as it is a change of circumstance overall". The timing of the start of the pilots must be up to the local authorities, albeit within reason—if there are five good ones that tick all the boxes, we would go ahead without waiting for the sixth one where the local authority said that it wanted to do it at another date. That is the reality there; that is why flexibility is needed on the timing of the pilots. It would not be practical or sensible to have them all starting and finishing on the same date.
	We would not envisage a pilot running for less than a year. Whether it is the calendar year of the council tax year, I do not know. That is up to local authorities. You would want to go through the annual—the seasonal—cycle. I suspect that waste collection has a seasonal cycle to it, like a lot of other things, for reasons that we can all understand. So it would probably be for not less than a year, but I cannot say that it would be for not more than so many years. We want local government to come to us for that. However, the pilots will not be open-ended. Clause 52(3) states that they will be limited by the designation, but the designation will be as a result of local government coming in with an idea for a pilot in the first place. Once the period is over, the powers will cease to exist for the authority and we would not be able to extend it.
	In practice, we would want to wait for the best evidence for a rollout, so we are likely to wait for reports on more than one pilot, but I agree that, the way that the Bill is drafted at present, it allows it after one. We may want to come back to that issue. The noble Lord asked whether there is a cut-off point after which no pilots can run. The answer is no, because we are in the hands of the local authorities. It will be up to them to come forward with schemes that run for the amount of time they think fits their circumstances, but they will have to have an end date, which prevents there being an unnecessary length of time. Those are quite legitimate questions, but I am simply not in a position to answer. All that I can say is that the nature of the flexibility that local authorities may require is covered in the Bill. We will have had to take cognisance of that when they come forward with their business plans and their waste collection plans.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I am very grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has been going through the amendments. I understand the need for flexibility; after all, pilot schemes will be different, let us hope, so they will be arranged in different ways. The underlying concern lies more with the parliamentary scrutiny that may be available to examine the schemes at a parliamentary level. It is clear that the Secretary of State will be evaluating them from the Government's point of view, but Parliament, too, has a clear role in evaluating the virtues of the schemes and in establishing a proper dialogue with the Government on the issues.
	Will the Minister consider before Report whether the Government may present amendments to make it clear that that is the Government's intention?

Lord Rooker: I go well beyond what I have written in front of me here, because I am not happy with the situation and, as we are in Committee, we have plenty of chances to look at the Bill. I will just go through part of my Q&A brief, because it meets that point. I hope that I will come up with a solution. As I said, we need to evaluate at least one of the pilots before there is any rollout. That is the evaluation of that particular pilot, of course. That is not necessarily the green light to go for rollout. In a way, the way that the Bill is drafted, the green light is not required. That is where I am a little unhappy about the way in which I have been asked the question.
	I will read what I have here, even though I am not happy with it, but I put it on the record because we must make progress on the Bill. Why does not Parliament have to agree before the powers are rolled out to all the authorities? That is the question, because that is the reality. Parliament will have already agreed the waste provisions in the schedule, and the Secretary of State will have to report back to Parliament on at least one pilot before making a decision on the rollout of the powers. Because of our firm commitment on learning from the pilots before reporting and deciding whether to roll out further, in practice it is likely that more than one, if not all, of the pilots will have been reported on to Parliament. Where we want to make changes to the waste reduction provisions before rollout, this will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. This gives Parliament ample opportunity. Where we did not want to make a change in the waste reduction provisions before rollout, it would not come back to Parliament. So there will be different schemes around the country but I will certainly take this away and have it looked at again. I want to be satisfied that the degree of parliamentary scrutiny is okay and, if it is not, I will have to have discussions with my colleagues. That is as far as I can go tonight but I hope it reassures the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that I am not closing the book and saying, "That is it". I am not; I want to go away and think about it.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I am grateful to the Minister.

Lord Greaves: So am I. We started talking about the period of the pilots and we have got into some extremely important aspects of this Bill. On the basis of what the Minister has said, we look forward to what he has to say in future. We will—as I am sure the Conservatives will, too—go away and think very hard about how the process of reporting back to Parliament and making decisions is going to work. I was interested in what the Minister said about a council changing from operating a pilot in part of its area to rolling it out across its whole area. The Minister suggested that if it did not do that, it would be a two-tier area. My understanding is that the whole basis of the schedule, which we are assuming would get carried forward in the rollout with any necessary amendments that the Government think fit and that we agree to, is that there can continue to be two-tier areas—for example in a district where one scheme operates in a town and then no scheme or a very different scheme operates in the country.

Lord Rooker: Forgive me. I was answering the specific question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. He asked why, if a local authority has a really good pilot going, they should have to stop it. Unless that pilot covered the whole area, they would clearly have to stop what they were doing to cover the whole area. Otherwise they would have a successful scheme that does not cover the whole area. Also, the pilot has to have an end date. My answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, is that they would have to stop, but for more than one reason. They would have to stop because they had set an end date for the pilot and they would have to stop if they wanted to extend the pilot to the whole of their area. To that extent there would be a change.

Lord Greaves: But could they stop on 31 March and start again on 1 April, rolling it out across the area?

Lord Rooker: We are getting into too much detail now. The pilot would stop but it would not be a pilot then. The pilot would have a designated end date and it would stop. It would have to come back to the rollout procedures under the Bill. The local authority cannot just decide to stop the pilot and say, "We are going to do it this way for our area". That is not the idea at all.

Lord Greaves: It seems a nonsense for an authority to have to stop, because the rollout has not happened yet nationally and may not take place for several months, and then has to wait a year before starting up again. If a local authority has a scheme that is working successfully, either for the whole area or part of the area—I am open to the belief that that may actually happen; I do not think it will but I will be the first person to praise the noble Lord if it does—it would be ridiculous if it then had to stop because the pilot had finished and then start up again a year later once all the deliberations in Parliament and Government had taken place. If an authority has invested in all the equipment and so on for a scheme, it would be daft for it to have to stop for a year for purely legalistic reasons.

Lord Rooker: I need better advice on this, but we have to be realistic. There will be five pilots in the whole of England, and it will not be technically possible for them to continue until there is a national rollout. A couple of the pilots may be duds and three of them may be okay but we do not know in which order they will come. Perhaps it will be possible to transmit ideas from the successful pilots to those that have been less successful. However, there will probably be a cut-off point for them: they are pilots, after all. This is not a question of subterfuge—of slipping in the scheme through the back door. We have to view them as pilots. A pilot has a down side—that is, it comes to an end and then you have to decide what you are going to do. The pilot might be evaluated while it is still running. As I said, it will continue for at least a year and probably longer, but I cannot say how much longer.

Lord Greaves: I am now convinced of what I thought when I listened to the discussion. When the pilots start is not an issue but when they end needs to be given considerable thought—particularly the relationship between the ending of the pilots and the start of the rollout, but we will think about that.
	When I tabled the amendment, I thought that there were issues here to be discussed but I was not quite sure what they were. I am very grateful to other noble Lords—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith—for teasing out those issues, as I now have a better understanding of what the difficulties are. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 52 agreed to.
	Clause 53 [Waste reduction provisions: report and review]:
	[Amendments Nos. 183ZD and 183ZE not moved.]
	Clause 53 agreed to.
	Clause 54 [Waste reduction provisions: roll-out or repeal]:
	[Amendment No. 183ZEA not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183ZF:
	Clause 54, page 23, line 40, leave out "one or more" and insert "the"

Lord Greaves: Some of the issues covered by this group have already been discussed, and I do not want to go into them again. However, the amendment that I specifically want to speak to is Amendment No. 183ZH, which concerns the powers to make new subordinate legislation under roll-outs.
	It seems that the Secretary of State will have remarkable powers not only to change the Bill in setting up the roll-out schemes and to amend the Bill in all sorts of ways but to make subordinate legislation. I am not clear that the subordinate legislation in subsection (3) on page 24 of the Bill is covered by the affirmative resolution procedure, as the rest of it is. I therefore tabled this amendment to ask whether it should be and, if it is not, to ask why not. I am moving Amendment No. 183ZF in order that I may ask that question under Amendment No. 183ZH. I beg to move.

The Duke of Montrose: I am a little disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did not make quite as much of Amendment No. 183ZG as he did of Amendment No. 183ZH, because it appears that it would reduce the amount of wording in the Bill. It would be interesting to hear the Government say why they need both paragraphs (a) and (b) of Clause 54(2) if they could be telescoped in that way.
	With regard to Amendment No. 183ZH, it seems that any order would cover any subordinate legislation, and I do not see why we need to specify that.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I know that my noble friend has already agreed to consider an amendment similar to Amendment No. 183ZF, but I am not sure that he agreed to consider one similar to the others. Therefore, I shall take a little time to go through my note in the hope that I shall be able to help the noble Lord so that he can withdraw the amendment this evening.
	After reporting back to Parliament on the pilots, we might wish to take one of three possible courses of action. First, if the pilots are successful, we may want simply to enable all English authorities to introduce a waste-reduction scheme, or we may first wish to revise the provisions in the light of lessons learnt during the piloting phase before rolling out the powers to all authorities. Finally, if we consider that the pilots have not been successful, we may wish to repeal the powers so that authorities cannot run the schemes. As I have said, the key point is to report back to Parliament when we have good quality evidence from the pilots; indeed, we have just had a detailed debate about when that might be. This is more important than needing to report back on each and every one of the pilots before we can submit proposals to roll out the powers more widely.
	We recognise the need to get Parliament's consent to any amendment or repeal of the provisions. Therefore, our ability to amend or repeal would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Following a recommendation by the Delegated Powers Committee, we have also decided that subordinate legislation that the Secretary of State makes under amendments to the waste reduction provisions should be subject to some parliamentary procedure. We would need to decide case by case which procedure would be most appropriate according to the nature of the subordinate legislation that we are proposing. We do not want to waste Parliament's time on minor technical details.
	As with Amendment No. 183ZEA, which we covered in the last group, the intention behind Amendment No. 183ZF seems to be to require the Secretary of State to report on all the pilots. My noble friend has already said that he will consider that.
	On the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, the most important point that I am trying to make is that the Government propose to accept the recommendation of the Delegated Powers Committee that any such subordinate legislation that comes out of the reporting process and any changes that need to be made would be subject to a parliamentary procedure, depending on the size of the change that we make. If the amendment is consequential, it would be a very small matter, which would be dealt with proportionately. We do, however, accept the Delegated Powers Committee's recommendations.
	With that rather rambling submission and given that we are already considering my noble friend's suggestion to look at parliamentary reporting, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Greaves: I am a little confused. It is normal to set out in primary legislation which orders and regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure, given that the great mass of them are subject to the negative procedure, but the clause seems to leave this open-ended. I think the Minister said that it would be open-ended but that they would do the right thing at the time. The clause seems to say that the orders setting up the roll-out will set up new subordinate legislation—sort of subordinate to the subordinate. I do not know whether that is normal procedure or how it works, but that is how I read it. I do not think that that is normal, but no doubt people will tell me if I am wrong. Given that the Minister was not quite sure what she was reading out, will the Ministers at least agree to look at it again?

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: May I offer a little clarity? My noble friend has agreed to consider the previous amendment, and he has just reminded me that he is very willing to think further about this group, too.

Lord Greaves: I am grateful, and on that basis I can do nothing else; I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 183ZG and 183ZH not moved.]

Lord Greaves: moved Amendment No. 183ZJ:
	Clause 54, page 24, line 12, at end insert—
	"( ) An order made under this section may confer powers on waste collection authorities to operate waste reduction schemes, but each waste collection authority shall have the power to decide whether or not to operate a scheme in relation to the whole or any part of the area of the authority.
	( ) A waste collection authority that is operating a waste reduction scheme under an order made under this section may cease to operate the scheme at any time.
	( ) A waste collection authority that is operating a waste reduction scheme may vary the scheme at any time in accordance with the provisions of an order made under this section."

Lord Greaves: This is the last group to include an amendment in my name, and this one stands on its own as it is an important issue. I hope that the Government will be able to give us absolute and categorical assurances on this; if they do not, we have to come back to this major issue.
	Amendment No. 183ZJ says two things. First, if a waste minimisation scheme—this applies to many potential schemes—is rolled out after considering the results of the pilots, it must not be compulsory for local authorities to take part. It must be voluntary for waste collection authorities to decide for themselves whether they shall,
	"operate a scheme in relation to the whole or any part of the area of the authority".
	The Local Government Association agrees with me, at least on this; it would be quite wrong to have a national scheme, or even to have a menu or series of schemes, which was compulsory for all local authorities. In the spirit of what the Minister was saying previously, when he admonished me for my centralist proposals, it ought to be thus.
	My problem is that I do not trust future Governments—I talk not of this Government, but all future Governments, under any party—not to take powers if they have them, or not to do things that were not originally intended if they are not stopped from doing so. That is why it ought to be set out in the Bill, in appropriate language—which I do not suggest mine is—that local authorities cannot be compelled to take part in these schemes.
	Secondly, I suggest that local authorities should have the power to vary or to end a scheme once it has been set up. A scheme may have to be set up for a given period of time, so my wording that they,
	"may cease to operate the scheme at any time"
	may be a little too strong. However, local authorities taking part in a scheme really need the ability to close it down if they think it is not working satisfactorily for their area. A local authority may decide that for various reasons; it may be on practical terms, or because it costs too much to work, or because there is a local political debate and control of the council changes to a party or parties that do not agree with it. That is what local democracy is all about, and a local authority ought to have the ability to close down a scheme if it so decides.
	I therefore propose that a scheme must be voluntary and that it can be closed down or amended at any time to better suit local conditions. I beg to move.

Earl Cathcart: We have some sympathy with the intention underlying this amendment, but await with interest the Minister's response to and clarification of it. There seems to be a parallel here with recent developments in the argument about biofuels. The UK Government and Europe seem to be set on stressing the use of renewable materials mainly in relation to transport—specifically, road transport. However, the Select Committee, in its recent report, feels that that emphasis is misplaced and that it should be directed toward the use of renewable energy sources to supply heat and power.
	Our interpretation of Clause 54 is that, in essence, once a scheme or two has been piloted, the Secretary of State may pick up the principles on which the pilots were based and instruct that everyone adopts those principles. If we are right, that would leave the individual waste authorities the freedom to adopt one of the schemes that has been trialled, or to create one of their own. The Government will merely set the targets for recycling and for reductions in waste going to landfill, and will insist that the authorities must act. The danger we see is that the principles may be wrong. One size might not fit all, and therefore this amendment does not reduce our fears because it does not address the nub of the problem. We are anxious to hear the Minister's comments, which we hope will cast light on this issue.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I might be missing something here. This is all about giving local authorities the opportunity to come forward and be designated as one of five pilots to look at a whole range of ways of running waste reduction schemes aimed at reducing landfill and thus benefiting the local authority. We are looking for very much a bottom-up approach initiated by those local authorities that want to get involved in these pilots.
	The amendments would have no practical effect because the Bill already gives local authorities all the powers listed in Amendment No. 183ZJ, so the only difference between the amendment and the Bill is that the powers are placed in the clauses of the Bill rather than in the schedule, which means that they will not be amended at the point of rollout. Under the current drafting, the powers would stand. The point I am trying to make is that here we are talking about the powers to establish pilots, and I hope that, as we discussed earlier, noble Lords will accept that we think it is important that local authorities should be able to decide whether they consider it appropriate to set up a scheme in their area. Further, they have the flexibility to operate a waste reduction scheme in either the whole or part of their area.

Lord Greaves: I thank the noble Baroness for allowing to me speak. Clause 54 is not about the pilots; it concerns the rollout. The purpose of my amendments, along with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, which are related but referred to a different issue, concerns whether or not there will be a compulsion on local authorities to take part after the legislation for the rollout has been approved by Parliament.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I want to say for the record that no authority will be forced to use these powers. They are enabling powers, and no authority will be forced to roll out in whole or in part of an area. I hope that that answers the question of compulsion on rollout. I am happy to put on the record that no local authority will be forced to use these powers because they are enabling powers. Given that there is now an opportunity to see this statement on the record, I hope that the noble Lord will consider withdrawing his amendment.

Earl Cathcart: I want to be sure that I am straight on this. The noble Baroness is saying that a local authority has the freedom either to adopt one or part of one of the schemes or to set up one of its own, provided that it meets the reductions required of it.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: We have been very specific in earlier debates about the kind of criteria for the pilots. The whole point of the pilots is that we will learn from them and, as I said in response to the earlier group of amendments, there are a number of things that we might do as a result of the pilots. We may find that the pilots do not work and we want to repeal the powers set out here. Local authorities would then not be allowed to take forward these schemes. But they will not be forced to use these powers because, as I have just said, they are enabling powers. I hope that I have been of help.

Lord Greaves: It does help but I do not understand why it should not be on the face of the Bill. As I have said before, it is not clear from the Bill as it stands that the orders setting up the rollout, if that is the phrase we should be using, would not involve compulsion.
	A great deal of the Bill is all about the pilots and asking local authorities whether they wish to take part. If they do, they should come forward with schemes drawn up for their areas and the Government will choose five of them. But once it gets to the point where the reports come back to Parliament on the success or otherwise of these pilots, and the orders and the subordinate legislation for setting up a permanent system are introduced, we are not clear exactly what the parameters and structure of that permanent system will be. That is why there is a concern that the Bill as it stands might allow a Government to make the scheme compulsory, and it would be helpful to understand why the Bill makes that not possible.
	If an authority comes forward, will there be a menu or a series of different schemes? Is it anticipated that there will be one national scheme or will there be a whole series of things that can be done from which local authorities can choose? That is the point that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, was making—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Taylor—and it is absolutely crucial.
	Once a local authority has adopted a scheme, can it change it, amend it or opt out of it if it finds that the scheme is not working? None of these options is clear to me from reading the Bill as it stands. They might be very clear when we finally read the orders that may be brought forward in three years' time, or whenever, after these pilots have taken place, but it will be too late then. It would be very helpful if the Minister could answer these questions so that we can understand how they relate to the Bill.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I apologise unreservedly if I am not being clear. I shall be happy to go through Hansard, look at the noble Lord's questions systematically and make sure that we have a note of them before Report. I accept that they are very important.
	I am conceptualising the situation from the point of view of a local authority which currently does not have the power to undertake any of these schemes. We are legislating to give local authorities these powers but we are not going to force them to take them up. We are looking for innovation, enthusiasm and drive in the pilots but we are realistic about the fact that they may not work. We do not want to prejudge matters and so we are trying to create a framework within the legislation which allows Parliament the right scrutiny and accountability through the affirmative resolution process. We want to ensure that where small changes need to be made to subordinate legislation we do not use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We are trying to reach a position where local authorities can get on with doing something they want to do. The Local Government Association has been rarely prayed in aid today by the noble Lord but, as far as I am aware, local government is keen to see the powers within this legislation enacted.
	I am happy to take up the noble Lord on his offer of systematically going through the questions. It is always useful to have these debates because matters can be cleared up in advance of Report. I am happy to progress in that way.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: I hope the Minister will forgive me, but the concern we are expressing is not about the intention; rather, it is that the way the Bill is constructed might present an opportunity at some time in the future for a nationally agreed, centrally imposed scheme to be forced on local government. There is nothing expressly in the Bill to say that that is not the intention, or that it could not conceivably happen. None of the noble Lords present today, including the government Front Bench, would be particularly happy to see that happening or to think that we encouraged it to happen late at night at the end of a lengthy discussion. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and my noble friend Lord Cathcart have been trying to encourage the Government to look at the wording to see if they could put a safeguard in.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I have said that we will do that. I have been given a helpful note that reminds me that the enabling powers could be changed from enabling to compulsory only by primary legislation. We can put that on the record now. I hope that is a useful answer.

Lord Rooker: It is the answer.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: I am reminded by my noble friend Lord Rooker that it is the answer.

Lord Greaves: On that basis there is more reading in Hansard for us all, and more looking at the Bill. I am grateful for what the Minister has said. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, might think it is all sorted out, but I am not so sure, and I do not think the rest of us are. We want to think about it again to make it absolutely clear.
	There are other issues about whether a local authority that operates a scheme can close it down and under what circumstances, and whether it can amend it. Then there is the wider issue that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, raised, about just how wide-ranging the powers are likely to be after these pilots. Will there be one scheme that is thought to be the winner, or will there be a series of different schemes? The Minister is shaking his head, so that is good news, but it is not clear.
	One of the reasons I take part in all this is that I am a great believer in Ministers standing up and making statements from the Dispatch Box when we are making legislation, here and in the House of Commons, because they have some force of law when judges come to interpret that legislation. What is proposed is very different from what a Government might do in the future with subordinate legislation, which is a different matter altogether, and that is what is concerning us. However, we are halfway to a meeting of minds, and on that basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 54 agreed to.
	Clause 55 agreed to.
	Schedule 6 [Renewable transport fuel obligations]:

Lord Teverson: moved Amendment No. 183ZK:
	Schedule 6, page 62, line 6, at end insert—
	"(3) It is the duty of the Administrator to ensure that only renewable transport fuel that—
	(a) causes or contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions over its total lifecycle from planting or production to use, and(b) contributes to sustainable development and the protection or enhancement of the national or global environment generally,
	qualifies as a permitted fuel under this Act."

Lord Teverson: I congratulate my noble friend Lord Greaves on his scrutiny of the previous section on these schemes and getting through that part of it by almost 10.30 pm.
	As no doubt everyone has noticed, this amendment should really be a substitute for new Section 125A(2) rather than an additional clause. The renewable transport fuels obligation is important not just as part of the UK's climate change strategy but at European level, and has been an area of great debate and focus, particularly over the past year, in terms of the contributions that biofuels make to tackling climate change—or indeed the negative effect they can have on it. Although the way in which the Government have written the Bill recognises the issue, we believe that it needs to be strengthened.
	In the amendment we have tried to clarify what carbon reduction means. We want to be explicit that it is over the total life cycle from planting to production, and that it has to be seen from a global as well as a national perspective. We also want to introduce the idea that for fuels to qualify at all under the RTFO, they have to have these qualities.
	The European Commission, in setting its own target last week of 10 per cent for biofuels by 2020, went far beyond the Bill and our amendment to define a qualifying fuel for the relevant directive as showing a 30 or 35 per cent reduction in carbon emissions on normal fuels. Do the Government now intend somehow to incorporate that same definition into this section of the Bill? How do they see the two being reconciled? I beg to move.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: The amendment raises an interesting point: renewable fuel must be genuinely renewable. The market for renewable fuel has in places had disastrous effects on the environment where it is harvested. Palm oil plantations have caused huge amounts of deforestation. The New York Times ran a headline last year that pointed out that what was once a dream fuel might become an eco-nightmare.
	Efforts to reduce emissions should not come at the expense of the environment. Indeed, the effect of deforestation on the atmosphere could be considered greater than that of the emissions. Thus, we support the idea behind the amendment.
	However, ensuring that renewable fuel contributes to the reduction of emissions over its total lifecycle seems to be out of any agency's or body's jurisdiction. It is produced, transported, purchased and sold by potentially different combinations of various entities. It would not be in the RTF administrator's power to ensure that the fuel met the standards of this amendment, however laudable they might be.

Lord Rooker: As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said, this is an incredibly important amendment. While the Government cannot accept it, we agree with the sentiments behind it, although it would involve some practical difficulties.
	The amendment would place a new duty on the administrator of the renewable transport fuel obligation to ensure that only biofuels that delivered carbon savings and contributed to sustainable development and the general protection of the environment should be eligible under the obligation for certificates.
	We agree that it is important that the obligation does not lead to the supply of unsustainable biofuels and delivers carbon savings. The Energy Act 2004 already allows the issuing of certificates to be linked with carbon saving and sustainability. In addition, we propose in paragraph 2 of Schedule 6 to introduce a new duty on the administrator of the obligation scheme. The Renewable Fuels Agency, as administrator of the scheme, will have a duty to promote the supply of renewable fuel which delivers carbon savings and contributes to sustainable development or general environmental protection. Action that promotes good biofuels will have the effect also of discouraging biofuels that have a negative environmental impact.
	The amendment would oblige the administrator to refuse certificates for some biofuels. The Renewable Fuels Agency would be required to judge whether biofuels were eligible for certificates by applying complex criteria and methodologies to determine their environmental and sustainability characteristics. Unfortunately, there are not yet sufficient international standards to create consensus on what criteria and methodology are appropriate. If the agency were to refuse certificates on the basis of its own criteria at this stage, it would be likely to lead to challenges by suppliers who did not agree with the criteria or the way in which they were applied, and to difficult questions of compatibility with European Union law and World Trade Organisation rules.
	Also, in some cases not all of the necessary data are likely to be currently available to suppliers and it will take time to develop the required information supply chains from feedstock producers. It would be wrong to penalise suppliers in the mean time.
	We are taking steps to address the concerns about the carbon savings and sustainability of biofuels. The obligation will include a reporting requirement from day one of the obligation, under which any transport fuel supplier wishing to claim a certificate in respect of any biofuel must submit a report detailing its environmental impacts. The Renewable Fuels Agency has published the detail of these reporting requirements and the reports will include information such as the carbon intensity of the biofuel, origin of the feedstock, any environmental or social standards in operation during the cultivation of the feedstock, and changes in the land use—a very important point.
	Last June we announced our aim to reward biofuels under the obligation in accordance with the carbon savings that they offer from April 2010. We also announced that it is our aim to reward biofuels only if the feedstocks from which they are produced meet appropriate sustainability standards from April 2011, by which time we expect to see the development of such international standards. Both aims are subject to important provisos concerning compatibility with World Trade Organisation rules and EU technical standards requirements, and consistency with the EU policy framework for biofuels.
	As has been said, the European Commission has proposed a binding sustainability framework for biofuels as part of the Renewable Energy Directive published in draft a few days ago on 23 January. The UK Government will continue to negotiate at EU level to ensure that this framework is as robust as possible.
	The sentiments behind the amendment are ones with which the Government agree, but for the reasons I have given it is not possible to accept it at this stage. The noble Lord asked about the European Commission's proposal to define qualifying biofuels as those delivering at least 35 per cent carbon dioxide savings and whether we would incorporate those into the renewable transport fuel obligation. The answer is yes. We will need to amend the renewable transport fuel obligation to incorporate the sustainability criteria in the draft Renewable Energy Directive when it is agreed. We are pressing for those criteria to be as robust as possible; that is an important point. Basically, we are with the noble Lord on the amendment. We have to overcome the technical and international rule difficulties but we are pushing to get this agreement in place so that we can proceed in this direction.

Lord Teverson: I thank the Minister for that reply. Given the reporting that has to be made to the administrator by the fuel supplier, are there any circumstances—even if a very negative report is made by the supplier—in which the administrator can disqualify that fuel from being counted? Does he have that power or is that not the case and it is just a matter of embarrassment to the fuel supplier?

Lord Rooker: I am only going by the words that I read out. I said that if the agency were to refuse a certificate on the basis of its own criteria at this stage, it might lead to challenges by the suppliers. I also said that there is a duty on the agency to promote renewable fuels and that the detail of the reporting requirements has been issued. They include, for example, changes in the land use and the cultivation of the feedstock. It will be a bold supplier who supplies information that the changes in the land use were deleterious to the environment and then expects everyone to buy the fuel. That may be open to challenge but we must take a lead on this. However, I think that is as far as I can go tonight.

Lord Teverson: I thank the Minister for that reply. Since we tabled the amendment I believe the European Commission has announced that it wishes to introduce legislation before the end of next year. I wish to examine the matter further but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Schedule 6 agreed to.

Lord Teverson: moved Amendment No. 184:
	Before Clause 56, insert the following new Clause—
	"Large corporations
	(1) All public limited companies listed in the FTSE 350 during a financial year must in their statutory company report for that year include within their annual report a section reporting on their greenhouse gas emissions.
	(2) The report must include the company's—
	(a) plan and strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,(b) greenhouse gas emissions for the financial year being reported,(c) equivalent figures for greenhouse gas emissions for the previous three years, and(d) estimate of emissions for the next three years of trading."

Lord Teverson: This is a new area of the Bill that we want to introduce under the miscellaneous provisions. The Government would be pressing at an open door in terms of major corporations. We are not talking about small to medium-sized enterprises. The Bill could take the opportunity effectively to amend the Companies Act to ensure that the major listed plcs on the Stock Exchange were mandated as part of their annual reporting to report the situation on carbon emissions. I understand entirely that the amendment as we tabled it would probably be rather too detailed for the Bill. The amendment tabled by other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Northover, may be more appropriate, but we feel strongly that such reporting should be included.
	I refer particularly to a report that has been sent to many of us from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the FTSE itself, which from a survey that it undertook in 2007, Climate Change: UK Corporate Reporting, found that 80 per cent of recipients—major corporations—already included reports or policy statements on climate change. Beyond that, 57 per cent of companies disclosed short- or medium-term targets relating to carbon emissions. Much of that is already going on. We feel strongly that there should be a unified way of doing that. At the moment those corporations report in various different ways. We feel that there is a strong argument to have a proper accounting and reporting basis for this and that that would be a major way of pushing forward without further actual laws or regulations, but bringing into corporate reporting and the corporate sector their performance in terms of their own carbon footprint and supply change. I beg to move.

Lord Whitty: I would like to speak to Amendment No. 184A, to which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has given a positive nod. We are using the Companies Act and the European legislation for a business review, and to extend it to ensure consistent and effective reporting of carbon usage by all listed companies. We all know that much of the reduction in carbon is going to have to be achieved by commercial private enterprises. I have heard the noble Lord's fellow Minister in Defra say that capitalism got us into this mess and it is going to have to be capitalism that gets us out of it. Although Governments play a part and regulation, taxation and support for trading schemes will undoubtedly guide business behaviour, unless carbon is rooted into the central fundamental considerations of business values and objectives, we are not going to achieve the kind of technological changes that will be required to meet the Bill's tough targets.
	To get that kind of behaviour change, internally managers and decision-makers in companies have to see the importance of the carbon objective; and externally shareholders, investors and the general public need to see, as part of the company's reputation, the way in which they are achieving carbon reductions. As a result, the carbon accounting becomes an important part of the reputation and success of those companies. It is also of course useful to the decision-making bodies of government, the Committee on Climate Change and the other agencies involved to have a consistent, effective and mandatory system of reporting by all companies.
	During the passage of the Companies Act, which, some noble Lords will remember, went on for a considerable time, there was some resistance by the Government and others to such provisions under the business review on the grounds that they would be resisted by business and seen as a burden. I think that things have moved on. At the previous CBI conference, 82 per cent of companies voted for a positive, mandatory system. As the noble Lord has already said, there has been a significant increase, particularly in the larger companies, in reporting. The amendment would make it mandatory and consistent and give a power to the Government to set the standards in consultation with industry on how carbon usage is reported. The Government may not like the terms of the amendment, but the principle of effective, consistent and mandatory carbon reporting ought to be part of the Bill, and a major part of the leverage that we have in achieving carbon reductions in the private sector.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: Many of the amendments proposed by the Opposition in Committee so far have dealt with the transparency of government actions and decisions on climate change. We have felt that we have had the support of the Government in trying to achieve this, but, if the challenge is to be met, there needs to be a way of determining as accurately as possible how we contribute to it so that we know where improvement is possible. That can happen only if large companies take on this mantle and begin reporting on their carbon footprint, ideally in the way in which revenue and profit are reported now. We congratulate the businesses that have already begun to do just that voluntarily.
	At present, there is no consensus on methodologies for measuring the carbon footprint of companies' services, supply chains, products or general operations. Thus, although in principle we welcome the amendment, we cannot offer our support until more work is done towards establishing national and international consensus on how companies measure and report their emissions footprint. It is only through such practice that useful comparison will be enabled, providing customers with a genuine way of discerning between different choices in the market.
	My honourable friend Peter Ainsworth, in another place, has called for the Royal Society to take forward the process of establishing a mechanism for achieving consensus. Until that is done and until another adequate way is agreed in calling for mandatory disclosure of carbon usage, we will not achieve the laudable intentions behind the amendment.

Lord Rooker: I shall be quick, as I have only a couple of minutes before this place closes down.
	The primary objective of company reporting is to provide information for shareholders and investors. The Government want to encourage full and transparent corporate reporting. For that reason the House agreed the provisions of the Companies Act 2006 on the business review. They require directors of listed companies to include in their reports information on environmental matters, including the impact of the company's business on the environment. The business reviews of these companies must also include key performance indicators on environmental matters where necessary to understand the business.
	As the Committee knows, the new provisions came into force only on 1 October last year for financial years beginning on or after that date, and company reports under this new regime will not be published until late 2008 or early 2009. Obviously, we expect many companies to include information about climate change and other environmental issues in their reports. Although I support the intention of the amendment, I would be concerned that introducing provisions to require disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions would pre-empt the outcome of the narrative and reporting provisions of the Companies Act 2006.
	Information is already available to companies to support them in reporting on environmental issues, including their greenhouse gas emissions. That relates to statutory guidance in Amendment No. 184A.
	The arguments for and against the introduction of statutory standards were considered by BERR—the DTI, as far as I am concerned—as part of its consultations on the Companies Act. We think that we now have the right balance, as the debates in this House and the other place during the passage of the Companies Bill demonstrated. To help companies in the process, best practice guidance is prepared by the Accounting Standards Board—a body of the Financial Reporting Council—in the form of a reporting statement to support companies with their reporting on environmental impacts. My department has also produced a set of key non-financial performance indicators to assist companies in reporting on environmental matters. Defra is also supporting work by stakeholders to develop an international standard for reporting on climate change issues. We think that publishing UK statutory guidance would pre-empt the outcome of this project; it is a question of timing. We cannot support the mandatory blanket requirements on companies to report on the CO2 emissions or issue statutory guidance, given the timing, the nature of the amendments and the work that is already going on. This is going to happen but not in the way and at the speed suggested by the amendments. I am sorry that I have had to be so brief.

Lord Teverson: I thank the Minister for his reply. I understand the question of timescale, but perhaps we could find a reasonable timescale within which standards need to be agreed. This has to happen; business itself thinks that it needs to happen. I am slightly disappointed by the response of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, but there may be ways round the issues that he raised. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 184A not moved.]
	Clauses 56 to 60 agreed to.
	House resumed.
	House adjourned at 11.01 pm.